


Keith & Katie vs the Universe: Being (part 2)

by luoup (ravenic)



Series: Keith & Katie ’verse (Team Forestfire) [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Relationships, keith and pidge knew each other AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2019-11-04 10:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17897087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenic/pseuds/luoup
Summary: After being scattered to the universe, the Paladins reunite.  This is getting serious.  The Empire wants Voltron out.Katie finds powers, and Keith learns that he isn’t who he thought he was.  They're going to have to fight harder than ever just tobe.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> LOOK AT ME I DID THE THING!!!
> 
> for my old readers, hello! i’ve made the executive decision as a confused and stressed-out lizard to split out this story into separate works for the sake of my sanity. this will not affect the content at all, just break things up into (slightly) smaller pieces so it’s not one overwhelming thing. i hope that works alright for everyone, and i hope you continue to enjoy this gigantic absurdity that has mushroomed wildly out of control. thank you for your continued support! 
> 
> for those of you who are new, you may want to start from [k&kvtw](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9917906) or at least the first part of [k&kvtu](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11701662/chapters/26348400). otherwise, this is essentially an au of voltron in which keith and pidge met before kerberos, and continued to work together through the formation of voltron and after. some things are essentially the same, others are not _(rover liiiiiiives)_. it’s become a wildly sprawling piece of work, so i’m splitting the story up approximately by seasons and we’ll go from there. enjoy!

_The wormhole crackled with lightning and static, but it spun empty.  The castle was alone.  The Lions were gone._  

Between one racing heartbeat and the next, the roiling violet storm of the corrupted wormhole was gone.  It was so sudden that Keith was paralyzed for a moment by the stillness, before realizing that he wasn’t still at all. 

The Red Lion was plummeting towards a barren planet.  Her lights were dead, her engines silent.  Keith caught a glimpse of a dust-gray sky and ashy empty ground, a flash of black metal as the Black Lion fell beside her sister like a dying feline angel, and then the earth was rushing up, filling the viewscreens. 

Then there was nothing for a long time. 

Keith opened his eyes slowly.  He was exhausted, every bone dragging him toward the ground.  Then everything came flooding back, and the aches and bruises and headache were all wiped away by electric adrenaline. 

“Red?” he murmured, carefully unfastening the belts and standing. 

Nothing.  The Lion was totally unresponsive.  Keith pushed away the twist of guilt.  Zarkon had been right in front of him.  He’d had to try. 

Unimportant for now.  What was done was done, there were other priorities now.  Like –

_Like finding Shiro._

Keith’s breath stuttered in his chest.  _Shiro._   He was sure he’d seen the Black Lion during the fall.  Her red wings had stood out like spatters of blood against the smoke color of this planet’s dead sky.  The other Lions were who knew where, scattered across the universe in the tatters of the disintegrated wormhole.  They could be anywhere, in any condition.  Hopefully, they had stayed together like Keith and Shiro had.  If anyone could get themselves out of trouble, it was the Garrison Trio.  Between the Blue Lion’s ice cannon, the Green Lion’s invisibility, and the Yellow Lion’s sheer size; Lance’s resilience, Pidge’s cleverness, Hunk’s stability – they would be alright.  Keith remembered the flashing moments before Red had fallen out of the wormhole and shivered.  They would be alright. 

But he couldn’t worry about them right now.  Shiro was somewhere close by.  After a few moments and some rude words, the helmet cooperated and Black’s location finally popped up on the visor.  She was grounded, but her beacon was transmitting so she must be alright.  Shiro too.  Keith just had to get to him. 

 _Breathe.  You can’t help anyone if you just sit here shaking.  Freak out later, once everyone’s safe back in the castle._   Keith tightened his grip on his Bayard.  Focus.  Get Shiro.  Think about everything else later. 

Keith didn’t know if this planet had somehow died recently, or if it had ever been alive.  There wasn’t a plant in sight, and Keith couldn’t spot a single trace of life as he ran towards where the Black Lion’s beacon was pinging lightly. 

As he ran, he talked.  Constant, hopefully not too panicked, trying to get a response from Shiro.  Anything.  For too long, nothing answered him but static.  Then –

_“Keith.  I’m here, Keith.”_

Keith’s body suddenly felt lighter.  His pace picked up, driven by the sound of his brother’s voice in his ear.  “Shiro,” he said, smiling in relief, “you made it.” _You’re okay.  Just hang on, I’m coming._  

Shiro sounded pretty rough, but he was talking and breathing, so Keith would take it.  _“It takes more than a glowing alien wound, a fall from the upper atmosphere, and crashing into a hard pan surface, at what I'm guessing is about 25 meters per second squared, to get rid of me. How are you?”_

Damn Shiros and their morbid senses of humor.  “It’s not great.  There’s nothing here, and Red is totally out.”  Then he processed the rest of the statement.  “Wait. You’re injured?”  _Should have brought the first aid kit from Red.  Hopefully Black has one too._

 _“It’s nothing.”_   It definitely was, if Shiro was mentioning it at all.  _“I’m fine.”_   He didn’t sound like it. 

“Just hang on, Shiro.  I’m coming.”

There was a sharp intake of breath.  When Shiro spoke again, it was much quieter and filled with tension.  “You’d better hurry.  I’m not alone.”

* * *

The Green Lion came flying out of the disintegrating wormhole into –

Nothing.  There wasn’t a planet in sight.  Pidge had a moment to wonder if that was better or worse than crashing to unfamiliar ground, before she struck something.  Then another something, and another, until the Green Lion was pinballing through what was, as best as Pidge could tell through the whirling viewscreens, the universe’s biggest trash pile. 

She couldn’t do anything to stop the violent series of impacts, or even control it.  Green was completely out of power, maybe drained somehow by the wormhole.  In a longer moment of drifting, Pidge glanced around the cabin and confirmed a fear: Rover was just as dead as Green.  The drone was bouncing around the cockpit, and now that Pidge thought about it that was actually really dangerous.  Green was currently nonfunctional; if Rover hit Pidge it could compromise her suit, and then she would really be dead.  There was no gravity in space, nor was there any air.  She grabbed hold of it as they hit another piece of metal that was probably the side of a starship at some point a century or twelve ago, clinging to the little robot as her Lion wheeled and spun in open space. 

At long last the momentum slowed, then stopped.  Pidge’s little bit of luck finally came through and the Green Lion drifted down to settle on a broad plate of ironsiding, battered but intact.  Albeit dark and out of every shred of power. 

Pidge sighed.  In the new and sudden silence, the sound was as loud as a lion’s roar. 

First things first.  Pidge wasn’t dead.  Her suit was intact and fully functional – whatever EMP had knocked Green and Rover out had missed her.  Thank stars for that, she wouldn’t have made it five minutes if the Paladin armor had been damaged. 

Okay.  Pidge was alright.  She was alive and unharmed, and completely alone in a trash nebula. 

Pidge sighed again, trying to drown out the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears.  “This is fine.  We’re fine.  It’s like Dad always said, _‘When you get lost in space, the best thing to do is stay put and wait for people to find you.’_   The others have four lions and a super-advanced castleship.  They can definitely find me, even if I’m not there to tell them how to do it.”  She snickered.  “Or do it for them.  I have to do _everything_ around there, I swear Hunk is the only one who knows what he’s doing at all. 

“Fine.  This is my vacation.  I’ll just hang out here and wait for those losers to come pick me up.  It’s nice.  Quiet, I can see the stars.  It’s a nice nebula.  Some relaxing time after all this crazy Voltron stuff.  Nobody around to bother me.  Nobody… nobody at all.”

Pidge was not a people person.  Actually, she kind of hated people.  The list of humans she would tolerate for more than a few minutes hardly expanded beyond her own family.  She much preferred her own company

But being completely and totally alone was… kind of bad, really.  She was the only Human around for lightyears, probably.  It was entirely possible that Pidge was the only living thing for millions of miles.  There wasn’t even Green, machinery humming softly beneath her hands and presence purring warmly in her mind.  Rover was just a chunk of metal at her feet, all of Keith and Hunk and Lance’s hard work at reviving her friend gone, at least until she could figure out how to recharge him. 

That was not going to be a priority, no matter how much she wanted the little drone to come back.  Pidge was now completely and utterly alone, with no way of contacting anyone.  There were going to be a lot more things to worry about than feeling a little lonely. 

The trash drifted in the quiet vacuum of space, the Green Lion just another piece of metal lost in the dump, dim and silent but for the breath and heartbeat of its single living inhabitant.  The universe was silent, roaring around her. 

The nebula’s stars and swirls suddenly looked a lot less inviting. 

* * *

There was no time to waste.  Literally – Pidge didn’t know how long her suit could recycle the air, but it was certainly going to be the cause of her death long before starvation or dehydration could kill her.  Green still had some atmosphere, but there was no recycling running in the power-dead Lion and any exit or entrance Pidge made lost her an airlock’s volume of air.  She had to be smart about this, or she would die long before anyone ever found her in this metal graveyard. 

Part of her didn’t want to leave Green.  Empty space was cool in theory and terrifying in reality, especially when all that separated you from the void was a relatively thin suit.  But staying was not an option.  Pidge needed to explore, see where she was and what she had to work with.  She needed to figure out what to do in order to get herself, Green, and Rover out of here alive. 

But the clock didn’t wait for a little girl’s fear, so the Paladin part of her brain told the child part to shut up.  Then she left the Green Lion, exiting through the belly airlock and thanking her rapidly draining luck that the airlock doors could still be maneuvered and sealed manually. 

In a different situation, this would be amazing.  Pidge had always been a bit of a magpie, a technological vulture who scavenged pieces of things to make new things, over and over and over again.  The space junkyard was probably filled with incredible things from every corner of the universe.  How had they ended up here?  What purposes they’d served, where they had traveled before being dropped into this little bit of void.  The lights and colors of the nebula swirled like silent dust clouds, beautiful and distant. 

Pidge wished Coran was here.  He would probably know everything there was to know about these pieces of trash, what they were for, who had made them, how they had come to rest here.  And she wouldn’t be alone, too.  Coran would know how to fix this.  He always knew everything, and with him here, jovial voice bubbling through the radio and space-suit-gloved hands gesturing wildly, Pidge would feel safe and fearless. 

But Coran wasn’t here.  Nobody was.  Pidge was alone, and she needed to work with what she had.  This wasn’t going to be the end of Katie Holt, alone in an empty nebula filled with trash, not even Green’s presence in her head or Rover’s little humming body, all bright and new, at her side.  She was going to make it out of this. 

Pidge activated her jetpack and took off from the Green Lion to investigate her new surroundings. 

Her new surroundings were garbage.  This was a space garbage heap, and everything here was ancient or broken or both. 

_Okay.  Okay.  All you have to do is fix Green and get her to send a signal to the castle to come pick you up.  Fix whatever is wrong with Green, with parts you can scavenge here, from pieces you have never seen before, all without puncturing your suit or running out of air.  Easy._

Pidge had been certain that she was alone (deeply, intensely, life-threateningly alone), so when the glowing blue eyes lit up in the darkness of an ancient shattered cannon hull, her heart nearly stopped. 

 _Oh god.  I’m going to die by garbage monsters, and nobody will hear me scream because I’m in space._ She drew her Bayard, hoping the electrified katar would be enough to deter the monsters.  Even a scratch would be fatal.  _I’m going to die._ The eyes drew closer, the creatures approaching from the depths of the cannon.  _I’m going to fight and I’m going to die and –_

The creatures emerged into the nebula’s light, and if gravity had been a thing here Pidge would have fallen to her knees in relief.  As it were, she just went limp, the Bayard’s light fading as the Paladin’s heartbeat began to slow down. 

“Oh my god thank Kepler.”  She smiled, relief taking the place of terror.  “Hey, little guys.  I’m so glad you’re not monsters.”  A thought occurred.  “Unless you are actually still monsters, somehow.  Please don’t be monsters.  I really don’t need any more points against me in this situation.”

The creatures didn’t answer.  They floated silently, watching Pidge with big eyes.  Beneath the eyes were the marks that had so frightened her, shining not nearly so brightly in the light and almost reminiscent of the Altean’s eyescales, now that Pidge’s adrenaline wasn’t making the descriptions.  The beings were fluffy and nearly round, with tiny useless legs wiggling by their sides as they maneuvered through the spaceyard.  There were so many, fuzzy bodies a variety of color echoing the nebula they lived in.  

“You must be the only things to live here,” Pidge murmured, reaching out with a gloved hand to stroke the nearest one, an enormous green creature that reminded her of a lima bean with googly eyes.  She smiled when it vibrated beneath her palm – maybe a hum or purr, if not for the vacuum that stole away all sound.  She wasn’t alone. 

Pidge worked best when she talked.  To her brother, to her friends, to Green or Rover.  It helped her work out issues as they came up, a sort of version of rubber-duck engineering except the rubber duck was a giant robot lion or a little formerly-Galra drone or a befuddled Human trapped along for the ride.  Little floaty trash nebula critters would do just fine. 

Everything was garbage and most of it was useless.  But Pidge was determined, finding and dragging back anything that looked remotely useful or interesting to a broad flat piece of junk as the critters drifted along with her, giant eyes watching her every move. 

Then she found a big black rectangular chunk with a silvery cracked gasket at the top.  It kinda looked like Shiro’s vest.  An arc of something orangey-mud-colored fit onto another piece that was kind of cylindrical.  One thing led to another, and before Pidge knew it she was even less alone than before. 

“I’m Keith, and I’m _soooo_ emo,” she grumbled in an excessively-deep voice.  The ragged scrap that had probably been a flag at some point in the last millenia was just way too perfect as a mullet. 

“Well I’m Lance, and I love the Princess and hate Keith,” she cried, waving the noodly bent-pipe arms of her Trash Paladin Lance. 

She announced a bunch of gobbledygook in the weird space-New Zealander accent that Trash Coran had, curling the ends of the bristly… whatever that had been just perfect for a Trash Moustache.  The critters watched the scene with wide eyes and, she expected, thunderous cheers that were swallowed by the silence of space.  A little bluish one tried to nibble on her arm and she gently batted it away.  Pidge had no idea what their dentition was like or if they even had any, but even the tiniest tear could kill her.  This wasn’t exactly a time to take chances, even with fuzzy little space-bug creatures. 

Trash Princess Allura was kind of tilted to the right because the pinkish cone that made up her body was severely dented, but the white sheet that represented her hair helped prop her up.  Pidge had only been able to make Hunk’s head, but she thought it represented him well anyway.  Maybe without a stomach Trash Hunk wouldn’t feel so nauseous all the time. 

Pidge hoped Hunk was on a planet instead of drifting in space.  He always got airsick, and this drifty no-right-side-up emptiness would have been just the worst for him.  He should be on a planet, with solid ground beneath his feet and maybe a beach, nice warm weather and a bright sun and a breathable atmosphere.  Maybe Shiro would be with him.  He could rest and Hunk could cook them both delicious food from the sea and the plentiful edible plants that would surround them. 

She hoped Lance had someone with him.  The boy was impossibly extroverted and might just wither up and blow away if he was stuck on his own.  On that thought, she hoped Keith had someone too.  He acted like such a loner, but he needed people, needed to be reassured that he wasn’t alone.  Pidge was finding out that she was a little more like that than she’d thought.  Maybe Lance and Keith were stuck together, bickering while they kicked butt and freed some planet from tyranny and finally learned how to work together.  Pidge knew they would be a badass team, if they could just get out of their own heads and work together.  They might be even better than Pidge and Keith, if they tried. 

Despite the critterbugs following her every jetpack-leap and the trash paladins that sat arranged on the gathering spot, the nebula roared with silence and emptiness.  Pidge hoped the others were together somehow, because being alone really, really sucked.  She hoped they would all be back together again soon.  She wondered how long her air recyclers would last.  Then she made herself stop wondering and start working again. 

Time wasn’t really a thing when all the light came from stars and nebula clouds that didn’t change except in the scale of years.  So Pidge had no idea how long she’d been poking and prodding at junk, with breaks to argue with herself as the entirety of Team Voltron, when suddenly all the spacebugs perked up and their cheeklights lit up, shining like tiny headlights. 

A heartbeat later, Green’s barrier turned on. 

Pidge let out a whoop and did a backflip (sometimes zero-gravity was kind of awesome).  She jumped up and activated her jetpack, flying for her Lion with her heart racing with excitement. 

But the excitement made her careless, and halfway there she hit an edge of a broad piece of metal hard enough to bounce backwards.  Her blood froze, hands frantically tracing the armor and suiting along her chest and belly, seeking breaks or cracks or rips. 

The suit was whole. 

Pidge breathed out a sigh of relief that echoed faintly in her helmet and intact suit atmosphere.  Then she looked at what she had run into. 

It was big.  A broad flat disc, lower in the center with raised edges.  Huge, but she could still recognize it for what it was. 

The satellite was old and rusted, but she could use this.  She would find her friends before they had to find her.  This would work.  It would be good enough.  It had to be, or she wouldn’t survive this and that was not an option. 

* * *

 _Patience yields focus._  

Keith couldn’t afford to make a mistake now.  If he fell, if he got hurt or knocked out or lost his weapon or damaged his jetpack, Shiro wouldn’t be able to help him.  Nobody would be.  He needed to be fast, but he needed to think.  Pidge wasn’t here to do the planning for him, and the stakes were too high to just rush on. 

_“That really stayed with you, huh?”_

Oh.  Keith must have said the mantra out loud, and Shiro picked it up between all the digging and snarling of the creatures trying to get into his cave. 

“You’ve given me some good advice,” he said, backing up from the canyon edge and scanning his surroundings.  If Shiro was talking, he must be okay.  Of course, he was backed into a tiny cave with aggressive monsters right outside, and if Keith had heard right earlier he’d been pretty badly hurt.  “If it wasn’t for you, my life would have been a lot different.”  _I wouldn’t have made it, without you.  You saved my life._   Too heavy, too strong for right now.  Keith hoped Shiro knew anyway. 

Shiro huffed a little laugh.  _“Yeah.  You wouldn't have crashed a flying Lion on an alien planet and be stuck with little hope of rescue.  You're welcome."_

God _damn_ Shiros and their damn morbid senses of humor.  He was getting worse, Keith needed to reach him.  But how the hell was he going to make it across this canyon? 

Another geyser erupted behind him, sending hot steam and rock fragments high into the air.  Keith watched the pieces soar up and fall in a wild scatter, and an idea came to him.  Shiro wouldn’t approve.  Pidge definitely would. 

Keith had always loved to fly, after all. 

Canyon dealt with, Keith kept running, following the point on his helmet visor that indicated the Black Lion’s location.  Shiro had to be near her. 

A scraping noise dragged through the comms.  Shiro sucked in a breath, hissing out a curse as more noises sounded.  _“Keith, they’re–”_   A sharp cry, then crashes and crunches and then there was nothing but distant roars and the sound of fighting. 

“Shiro!”  Nothing.  He must have lost his helmet.  “Shiro!” 

He ran faster. 

Keith finally reached the top of a ridge, and on the other side was everything.  Shiro, running and fighting against four enormous boar-lizard-dog monster creatures.  And closer, the Black Lion.  She lay still and silent, empty of a Paladin. 

Shiro was still too far away to reach, even with the jetpack.  This was a wild impossible idea, but Keith didn’t have a choice.  He turned away from his brother and ran to Black. 

She towered over him, heavy and silent.  She was so much bigger than Red.  So different.  But they had something in commo – they both wanted to protect Shiro. 

 _Please let this work._   Keith remembered his failed first attempts to access his own Lion, and roughly pushed them away.  This had to be different. 

He pressed his hand against the Lion’s jaw, trying to feel for something – an energy, a connection, he didn’t know.  Maybe he was just looking for Shiro somewhere deep in this metal, an echo of his brother that he could connect with even if this was not Keith’s Lion.  “I know I’m not Shiro,” he murmured to the cold surface, “but he’s in trouble.  We need to help him. 

“Let me in.  I want to save him, and I know you do too.  He’s your Paladin, but he’s my brother.  If we work together, we can do this.  If we don’t–” he took a shuddering breath, “he’ll die.  I’m not gonna let that happen, and I think after everything you don’t want this to be the end. 

“Please.  Help me save him.”

There was a long moment of silence.  Keith stood stone-still, hand pressed against the Lion as if he could push his way in.  Then –

The Black Lion’s eyes lit up gold.  She didn’t roar, made no sound at all.  Instead, she opened her jaws. 

“Thank you,” Keith whispered.  Then he ran, up into the Lion’s mouth as she closed her teeth behind him. 

It was nothing like flying Red.  The Black Lion knew what she wanted to do, knew where her true Paladin was and how to protect him, and Keith was mostly just a passenger.  He didn’t care.  If it worked and they saved Shiro, it didn’t matter how directly he’d been controlling the Lion. 

Together, they drove off the beasts, leaving Shiro lying on the sand, motionless either through amazement or injury or a mixture of the two.  Keith hoped it was purely the first, but with their luck prepared for a good helping of the second as well. 

That Galra witch had gotten him good.  The second the creatures were gone Keith had flung himself from Black so fast he couldn’t actually remember leaving the Lion, his only focus reaching Shiro.  His brother looked exhausted and was generally pretty battered, both from the rough landing on the planet and from being made the plaything of giant boar-dog-lizards.  Worst was the wound on his side.  It glowed a sickly purple, and Keith was certain that nothing in the measly first aid kit Black carried would do anything to fix it. 

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.  Keith was probably half Shiro’s size, but he was determined.  Shiro helped as best he could. 

They didn’t speak until they were back in Black’s cabin, sitting on the floor with the contents of the first aid kit scattered around them as Keith did his best to treat his brother’s injuries.  Shiro had remained quiet, almost silent except for a few harder inhales when Keith touched something that hurt more.  Keith didn’t remember him being this stoic about injuries before Kerberos, but in the arena showing weakness was probably asking to die.  He didn’t let himself think about that much more. 

Shiro spoke suddenly, providing a thankful distraction.  “We need to go to the Red Lion.”

“She’s out,” Keith said.  It hurt a little to remember how motionless she’d been beneath his hands.  “The fight and the wormhole drained all her power, she can’t even turn on.”

“Black can give her some,” Shiro said confidently.  Maybe his Lion had provided that idea, or he was just putting on a show.  “We need both Lions up and running, and we need to find somewhere safe to wait for pickup.”

 _Because we definitely can’t save ourselves_ , was the unspoken end to that sentence.  This planet was barren.  The steam from the geysers might be potable if they boiled it long enough, or it might just be hot air or acid or stars knew what else.  Keith _really_ didn’t want to eat the creatures they’d fought, although killing them wouldn’t be a problem if he could use a Lion to do it. 

More pressing was Shiro.  The purple slashes were hidden now beneath a layer of white bandages, but he needed real medical treatment.  It didn’t matter whether they could find fresh water or food, or how long they could survive off the rations in the two Lions.  Shiro would die if he didn’t get real help soon.  Keith hoped the healing pods in the castle could treat purple witch-wounds. 

“Okay,” he said.  “We’ll go get Red, find somewhere safe, wait for the castle to track our signals and pick us up.  Now we have a plan.”

“What is the world coming to?” Shiro asked with a teasing smile that made the pain on his face recede.  “Keith Kogane with a plan.  The universe must be ending.”

“Shut up and pilot your Lion.”

Apparently Black had decided now that her Paladin was back, she wouldn’t accept any other.  So Keith stood behind and slightly to the right of Shiro’s chair as the rightful Black Paladin guided his Lion to the point Keith directed on the map, where the Red Lion lay lifeless on the sand. 

They were robot ships made of metal.  “Lifeless” was not supposed to be a negative description.  But there was just something innately unnatural about how the machine that made up the Right Arm of Voltron was sprawled in its crater of impact. 

Shiro whistled lowly.  “You really weren’t joking,” he murmured, looking over the scene. 

Keith bit the inside of his cheek.  This was his fault.  Black had gone through the collapsing wormhole too, and she was fine, if a little battered.  But Red was… _dead_ , or as close as these robots seemed to get.  Unconscious, maybe.  Hopefully.  All because Keith had tried to fight Zarkon on his own.  Shiro had either missed that part of the battle or was focusing on their immediate survival, but Keith knew he was going to get the scolding of his life at some point, likely from Allura or possibly (more frighteningly) Pidge. 

As Black pressed her nose to Red’s side, giving… something that would hopefully revive the other Lion, Keith’s thoughts drifted.  He wondered where the rest of the Paladins were, and in what condition.  Hopefully Red was the fluke and everyone else’s Lions were working just fine.  Allura was probably hopping around in the castle and picking them up one by one, Operation Lion Retrieval. 

He didn’t want to think about any alternatives to that scenario. 

“Keith, look!” Shiro’s voice startled him out of his thoughts, and Keith looked out of Black’s viewscreens to see the Red Lion slowly shifting to stand upright, eyes glowing dimmer than usual but still lit. 

A grumble echoed in Keith’s head, and he closed his eyes, relaxing in ways he hadn’t even realized he was tense.  _Hey, Red._  

She wasn’t especially pleased about the current situation, but everyone was alive and mostly intact so she would take it.  Keith agreed. 

Red moved slower than she ever had, often falling behind her sister when ordinarily Black might have struggled to keep up.  Keith knew it was in part because of him, because of how he’d flung himself at Zarkon the first chance he had, with no plan besides _get him._   Red had agreed.  That didn’t mean it had been a good idea. 

It was slow going, but eventually they found somewhere that didn’t seem to have any creatures.  Black would keep an eye out for any movement – Red was still too low-power to expend her energy on scans. 

This would have to be good enough.  Keith helped Shiro out of his Lion, because the other Paladin was now struggling to walk.  Clearly his ability to fight the creatures earlier had been sheer adrenaline and survival instinct, and now that that had faded he was doing much worse. 

“I think we’ll just have to wait here,” Keith said as he got Shiro settled on the ground.  The Black Paladin was pale and shaky, bad off enough that he couldn’t even try to hide it anymore.  “They’ll come find us soon.” _I hope._  

Shiro hummed a vague assent, eyes closed and hand pressed against his side.  “Soon,” he agreed. 

 _Pidge won’t leave us out here too long.  She was worried about Shiro before we even got to the castle, and she was_ pissed _at me.  She’ll come, and Allura and Coran will be with her.  Pidge will fix Red and yell at me, and Allura and Coran will fix Shiro so he can do the Disapproving Big Brother Stare at me.  Lance won’t ever let me live it down that I tried to 1v1 Zarkon himself.  Hopefully Hunk will forgive me and make us edible food because I am never letting Coran in the kitchen again and these rations taste awful._  

This place felt like being back in the desert.  If he could hear a coyote, Keith might be able to close his eyes and imagine that he was back on Earth, hoverbikes behind them instead of Lions, Shiro asleep because he was tired and not because he was dying. 

The planet’s distant sun began to set.  Strangely, the air temperature didn’t change at all, which was probably a good thing right now.  Keith got a little fire going and settled beside his brother, Bayard out and in sword form at his side. 

Shiro fell into a shallow restless sleep as the last of the sunset faded.  The sky was dark and nearly purple, the stars glittering yellower than they did on Earth.  Nothing stirred.  The Lions remained silent, and all Keith could hear was Shiro’s uneven breathing beside him. 

They were just going to have to stay here and rest and wait until someone found them.  Eventually.  Somehow.  Keith didn’t know how or when, but he hoped it was soon.  He was worried about Shiro, and worried about the others.  Hopefully they would all be together and healed again soon. 

_Find us.  Please._

* * *

Pidge drifted backwards, admiring her work.  The Green Lion now bore a strange structure on her back, chunks and pieces awkwardly soldered together by the edge of her Bayard to support the enormous satellite dish that now towered over the whole thing.  Good thing there was no gravity, or the balancing would have been much more difficult, and a single tiny Pidge could never have moved any of the components on her own. 

The little nebula critters had followed her around the entire time, completely useless for anything but getting in the way, bumping into each other, and being honestly really cute, but they were somehow reassuring.  Pidge talked to them and to her Trash Paladin Team, and the purposeful work let her anxious brain finally settle a bit.  She had a goal and a plan, and she was going to get out of here. 

Around her, the nebula clouds glittered silently, rippling like the ribbons of Earth’s northern lights, if one had been swallowed by them.  But Pidge wasn’t here for the scenery.  Right now, she would do anything to see the shining white towers of the Castle of Lions, or the sharp flash of the Red Lion as it flew through space, the worn metal of the Black Lion, the sleek form of the Blue Lion, the glow of the Yellow Lion’s eyes. 

In the empty drift, the critters watched her every action with wide eyes.  “Okay guys,” Pidge said, her pulse thrumming, “watch this!” 

She connected the final cables, and the satellite’s channels illuminated, powering up to call out to the castle. 

The satellite flared brightly, challenging even the nebula’s lights.  Pidge imagined the radio waves pulsing through space, reaching the castle’s receptors, transmitting her location directly to her friends.  A beacon, across the universe. 

And then it all came crashing down. 

The satellite remained standing.  There was no real “down” in space.  But the lights suddenly flickered and died, and within moments the whole thing was back to being a bunch of space garbage instead of a powerful satellite transmitter.  The clock had struck midnight and the carriage had turned into a pumpkin, and Pidge was still alone in dead space. 

She stared at her powerless satellite tower for… a long time, probably.  She couldn’t process what had just happened.  _No._   “No no no no no.”  This couldn’t happen.  She needed that tower, needed to get out of here.  “Come on.  I need to get out of here.  I need to find my friends.  I need–” She needed too much.  “Come on, please, just work!”

She hit the side of the tower with a gloved fist.  Nothing happened.  _Don’t hit it too hard,_ said a bit of her brain.  _You might rip your suit on the metal, and then there won’t be anything for the others to find if they ever do come here._  

It was getting hard to breathe.  The visor readouts said that the recyclers were still working alright, so it was just panic.  Just panic.  _It’s fine.  Your air is still okay.  You’re just going to die out here, because you couldn’t make a freaking satellite do its freaking job._

She couldn’t cry.  If she cried, she wouldn’t be able to wipe the tears off her face, and the helmet would turn humid and sticky and itchy.  She couldn’t cry, couldn’t press her face into her hands and curl into a little ball of fear and looming despair.  The armor was too bulky and stiff, and at this point Pidge was nervous to even stretch her suit too far.  She couldn’t cry, but her eyes burned anyway. 

“Help.” She said it so quietly.  Not that there was anyone around to hear her.  “Someone, please.  Matt.  Keith.  Shiro.  Lance.  Hunk.  Allura.  Coran.  Dad.  Help.”

_You couldn’t find your family, and now nobody is ever going to find you._

“Please.”

A deep rumbling roared through her head, filling her mind.  Sprouts bursting from the soil, flowers exploding from their buds. 

Every light on the Green Lion illuminated, brilliant white and gold and green.  The light poured from the Lion up through the scrap-heap tower on her back, flaring out across the ancient satellite dish and filling it with power.  The whole thing shone star-bright, _find me find me find me_ calling out across galaxies for ancient Altean receptors, for friends.  _I’m here,_ called the beacon. _Come find me._  

And then, just as quickly as it had lit up, it all died out again.  Dish and Lion were both dark and silent, and Pidge had to wonder if she’d imagined the whole thing.  “Green?” she whispered.  But the Lion remained empty, all her meager energy spent in that single burst. 

Maybe it went through.  Maybe that was enough power to send out the signal, to call to castle and Lions and tell them where to find the Left Arm of Voltron.  Or maybe Green hadn’t had enough strength remaining, and the call had died before it could reach anyone who might be listening.  Only time would tell, and that same time was ticking down to when Pidge’s remaining life support systems would drop and fade and die, and then she would die too. 

Now all she could do was wait. 

“I’m here,” Pidge whispered to the silent stars.  Nothing answered but the slow eyeblinks of the nebula critters and the hummingbird flutter of her own heart. 


	2. Chapter 2

Even with imminent death by suffocation hanging over her head, Pidge couldn’t just sit there.  The nebula was too big, the colorful clouds of light too distant and too silent.  Her own heartbeat would drive her insane if she stayed still.  So she moved. 

Drifts of critterbugs followed her from piece to piece of twisted shattered metal.  They couldn’t hear her constant rapid monologue – a well-sealed helmet and the void of space made that impossible, if they even had ears or other vibratory input receptive structures to begin with – but she talked anyway, about anything and everything.  About being a Paladin, about the others, about her family and her dog and Rover and Green, her projects, Earth, speculations about the origins and purposes of the scraps that filled the trash nebula. 

About anything but her slowly fading air recyclers, and the fact that Green hadn’t illuminated at all since her massive energy flare to boost the satellite (and how even if she did she couldn’t create atmosphere from nothing).  About anything but how much she missed the other Paladins, her brother, her parents.  About how terrified she was. 

The stars and gas clouds didn’t care.  But the little bugs helped.  They drifted along, silent and wide-eyed, cheek marks flashing whenever they bumped into anything (which they did a lot).  They didn’t really seem to have much control over their movements, and Pidge wondered how they were able to scoot along in open space.  She wondered what they ate, how they lived.  She wondered about a lot.  It helped a little, to have something to distract her. 

There was suddenly a brighter flash from somewhere behind Pidge to her left.  There was no sound, of course, but it reflected on all the metal and she turned to see what it was, absently patting at a little red bug that bonked headfirst into her hip. 

Her hand froze, and the critter air-scuttled back away from her to collide with a fluffy yellow one, which in turn bumped into some metal and bounced right back into the red one.  But Pidge didn’t notice them at all. 

Filling the sky, brilliant white against the faded rainbow of the nebula’s clouds, was the Castle of Lions.  Pidge tried to rub her eyes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, but her hands hit the helmet’s visor.  She couldn’t pinch herself either (too risky, if she created even the slightest rend in her suit she would die with salvation in sight), so she settled for shaking her head very very hard. 

She did it so hard that she nearly missed the little sparks of the comm radio sounding, impossibly loud after so much time with her own voice as the only sound. 

_“Pidge?  Pidge!  Oh, Altea, please don’t let us be too late.  Pidge, can you hear us?”_

She choked, coughing for several seconds before her words could finally form.  “Yes.  Yes, I’m here!  I – I hear you!  I’m here!”  Pidge flailed wildly as a substitute for jumping up and down, accidentally hitting a roundish pink bug with her knee and sending it spinning head over tail (or rather, face-end over other-end) into a whole cluster of purply ones. 

There was a loud burst of static and some crashing noises.  _“Number Five!”_   Pidge had never been so happy to hear Coran’s voice.  _“Thank the stars!  Is the Green Lion alright, or do you need us to trac-beam you in?”_  

If there had been gravity, Pidge would have had to sit down.  The relief was so overwhelming she was nearly dizzy.  “No.  She’s out of power, I think the wormhole drained her somehow.  Rover, too.  But we’re okay.  Give me a second to gather up some things and disconnect the satellite, and then you can trac us all up.”

 _“Copy.  We’ll see you soon,”_ Coran said.  Then the comm clicked and silence returned. 

But it wasn’t so scary, this time.  The castleship hovered like a guardian angel, its clean white metal reflecting some of the drifting light.  Inside was air, water, friends.  Pidge was going to be okay. 

But first, she had some things to do.  It took even longer to detach the satellite than it had to put it together and mount the thing up.  Pidge kept some components and cabling, but the rest was trash and she left it to float aimlessly through the not-air as she went on to collect everything else. 

All six Trash Paladins went into Green’s belly cargo hold.  Call Pidge a hoarder, sentimental, easily attached – they had been fun to make, and they’d helped ease her fear and anxiety, soothed the loneliness somehow.  She wasn’t sure she was exactly going to _show_ them to the others (although it might be worth it just to see the looks on the real Paladin’s faces), but she was taking them anyway. 

As she moved to the Green Lion for the last time, finished and ready for the castle to pick her up, some of the little floaty trash nebula critters followed her. 

“No more playing,” Pidge told them, surprised at the sadness she suddenly felt.  The little bugs had helped her just as much as the Trash Paladins, maybe even more.  Something lived in this junkyard, and that had made it just the tiniest bit less terrifying.  “I’m going home now.  I can’t stay here.  I’m not like you – I need to breathe air, and have gravity and food and things.  I don’t think you can come with me, I’m sorry.”

The critterbugs looked at her, blinking.  Most drifted off, maybe bored by the lack of movement or disinterested in the still form of the Green Lion.  But some stayed.  A messy-fluffed pink one, a big green one, a cross-eyed red one, a blue one that struggled to stay belly-segments-down, a purple one with a terrifically wonky face, the large yellow one from before, and another littler green one that followed Pidge like a toddler, bumping her back and shoulders. 

“You won’t be able to get back here easily,” Pidge warned as she set to closing Green’s belly door, although she couldn’t help but pet the pink one when it came to her.  “I mean, once my Lion works I could probably take you back here if you need.  But we’ll be far away.  We get in battles sometimes, it can be pretty scary.”  They seemed fine with the concept.  Blue and red were already exploring the cockpit.  Yellow buzzed around her in what were presumably excited circles as Pidge settled into the pilot’s chair.  In the dead viewscreens’ reflections, she caught sight of purple doing drunken loop-the-loops up and down the hallways. 

As the castle’s trac-beam began to gently move the Green Lion from her resting position on what had probably once been a warship’s tailwing, another though occurred.  “Also, we have gravity and atmosphere.  I’ll have to check and make sure you guys can handle that.” 

She held Rover’s still, silent casing as the Green Lion moved slowly to her hangar.  Eventually blue got bored with exploring and came to bump at Pidge’s forearm until she petted it.  She stroked the fluff up and down and wondered if it was as soft as it looked. 

Soon, she’d be out of her suit.  She would be able to breathe real air (well, not technically, but the castle’s air recycling system was much better than her suit’s) and touch the little critterbugs with bare hands.  Green would be awake and Rover could get repowered.  Everyone could be together again, and Pidge would finally be able to breathe – and not just because of the better air filtration. 

*

The second the castle space repressurized, Pidge was throwing herself out of the Green Lion, ripping her helmet off and collapsing to lean against Green’s side as she gasped, trying to convince herself that she was safe.  All the stress had peaked as she’d waited to be trac-beamed into the castle, her brain suddenly certain that she was going to die right now, just before reaching safety. 

As she tried to get her heartbeat to slow and her hands to stop shaking, the door burst open and Allura flew in.  Her hair was a mess.  Somehow that was the thing that caught Pidge’s attention.  The princess was always so put-together, seeing her a mess only confirmed how bad things had been. 

The Altean Princess froze at the door, eyes flicking over the Green Lion’s motionless form before settling on Pidge.  Then she just… deflated.  Allura made it to Pidge, dropping to sit beside her in Green’s shadow.  “You’re alright?” she asked quietly. 

Pidge nodded.  She was still working on breathing at a reasonable rate, letting the clean air and open space (well-pressurized, with gravity) settle her.  “Thanks for finding me,” she said after a moment.  She’d always been small, but out there, in the open with nothing at all around her, she had felt _tiny_.  Atomic.  Nothing.  It had felt like she could have just disappeared, vanished like steam evaporating, like a light turning off.  Not until the castle had appeared in the sky (everything been the sky, really) had Pidge felt like she might stay real and tangible. 

“Thank you for sending that beacon,” Allura responded.  “The castle was trapped in the wormhole, looping to infinity over and over or something.  We couldn’t get out.  Coran kept getting younger.  He was going to disappear, but then your signal came through and we escaped.”

Pidge stared at her.  Trapped in a looping wormhole?  That was, like, six different degrees of interesting.  She’d have to think about that later, when she didn’t feel slightly transparent and dizzy.  Maybe with Hunk. 

She was saved from having to consider the concept more, and make her headache worse, by Coran making a grand and tumultuous entrance – running into the doorframe as he charged into the hangar.  Once he’d made it through, he beelined for the girls.  Pidge had to lean to the side to keep from getting kneed in the forehead, he came so quickly and so close.  

“Thank quiznak you’re alright, Number Five!” Coran exclaimed.  “Why, out there in open space with a nonfunctional Lion, you wouldn’t have lasted a few more vargas.  We would have continued to loop forever without your signal – don’t remember much about that, really – and you would have suffocated, or depressurized and exploded, or maybe just starved to death if you air filters didn’t give out first–”

“That’s quite enough, Coran,” Allura interrupted quickly, watching Pidge’s face grow pale and her breathing pick up again.  “We’re alright now, and so is Pidge.  Everything’s okay.”

“How did you get that beacon to us?” Coran asked, examining the Green Lion. 

“I built a satellite from the nebula junk,” Pidge said, leaning back and forcing herself to relax again.  “Green boosted the power just enough to send out the signal, but I think it took a lot out of her.”  She was quiet for a moment.  “Rover’s down, too.  I think the wormhole electricity knocked out its power.”

“Right.” Coran seemed to be doing quite well, considering he’d been rapidly de-aging mere doboshes ago.  “Let’s just take you and Rover to the medbay for some scans.  I’ll plug it in and it’ll be buzzing about again in a few ticks!”

“Thanks, Coran,” Pidge said.  She got up, hopefully not looking as wobbly as she felt. 

Allura went to Green’s door, presumably to get Rover, but jerked back suddenly, eyes wide.  “Pidge!  Coran, look out!  There are – things–”

“No, no!” Pidge shouted, waving her hands to stop them both from attacking.  “It’s okay!  They’re my friends.”

From Green’s portal streamed the creatures that had come from the nebula with Pidge.  Seven little bugs in all, which immediately began drifting around the room, bumping into things and making the most adorable tiny motor-purring noise Pidge had ever heard, now that she could hear them.  Apparently gravity and atmosphere didn’t make a difference in their ability to float, or their inability to direct themselves or move with grace. 

Her initial alarm faded, Allura stretched one hand out carefully.  The yellow bug made for it, eyes wide with interest, but it miscalculated and ran into her stomach instead.  The princess burst into giggles, before slapping her hand over her mouth.  The red bug knocked into her from behind, getting a little tangled in her hair before Pidge came over and worked it free. 

“What are they?” Allura asked, petting the yellow one gently. 

Coran was totally silent.  Then he shrugged.  “I wouldn’t know.  I’ve never seen these beings before.”

The two turned to stare at him. 

“You what,” Pidge said flatly.  “I thought you knew everything?” 

“Do you really not know these creatures?”  Allura asked.  “You’ve never heard of them?”

“They’re not familiar in the slightest,” Coran said lightly, totally heedless of the others’ bafflement. 

Pidge shook her head.  “Well, then,” she said, “I’ve been calling them my Trash Nebula Friends.  That’s a good enough name for now, I guess.”

Allura laughed.  “It certainly seems to be,” she agreed.  The purple critter had come over to see what the fuss was all about.  It missed Allura completely and would have bopped right into Pidge’s face had she not caught it.  She tucked it under one arm, catching the smaller green one as it drifted by with a tilted keel. 

“Can they stay?” she asked.  This wasn’t her castle.  She didn’t want to see the critters leave, but in the end it wasn’t her choice. 

Allura was petting the yellow creature on the head – well, the front-er end, they didn’t really have separate ‘head’ per se.  Once the red one had gotten untangled it had started floofing in uneven circles around her head, putter-purring loudly.  “I believe they have made their choice clear,” she said, “and I have no issues with it.  You will have to be responsible for them,” she added, tone dropping to slightly more serious.  “Whatever it is they need to eat, keeping them from getting in trouble.  They will be yours to care for.”

Pidge had to stop herself from doing a little dance.  “Absolutely,” she blurted.  “Definitely.  I’ll keep them healthy and happy and it’s gonna be great, they’re like little technicolor tribbles except hopefully not actually because then that would be a problem, but I’m sure these guys are not actually tribbles and will be great and won’t like overrun the castle while we’re sleeping or anything…” she trailed off, partly at the looks on Allura and Coran’s faces and partly because she was dizzy again.  “Um.  Sorry.  Yes, I’ll be responsible for them.  Thank you.  Coran, can we go to the medbay now?”

It turned out that while Pidge’s suit had done a great job keeping her body pressurized and her airflow functional and non-fatal, she was dehydrated and definitely had some minor hypoxia (thanks, headache).  But she was alive and not dead, and Coran gave her some water and told her not to overexert herself for a while and she would be alright.  Green was repowering from the castle’s energy and Rover was plugged in, beeping sleepily like someone who was exhausted or maybe slightly drugged.  The trashbugs blundered around the medbay and made a bit of a mess (Pidge was looking at you, pink bug who knocked over a box of bandages). 

Now that that had all been dealt with, it was time for the next thing.  Four Lions were still missing, and their Paladins with them.  But the castle was no longer trapped in a wormhole loop and could track them – between Allura, Coran, and Pidge, they would be found in no time. 

“Shiro first,” Pidge said.  Coran blinked at her, but Allura agreed. 

“He was injured,” she nodded, turning to look at the starmaps as Coran began to enter the commands to scan for the Black Lion’s signal.  “It happened when he was rescuing me from the Galra.  He fought the witch, and she wounded him.”

“We’ll get to him,” Pidge said, turning to her own screens.  “He’ll be fine.”  _He’s not going to die from a scratch, not after everything.  He’s not allowed to._  

She pushed away the headache, the aftershocks of fear from her time alone.  The bridge was filled with light and noise and life – two Alteans, four Altean Mice, seven Trash Nebula Critters, a very low-powered drone, and somewhere beneath her Green hummed distantly, giving her a feeling like being in a thicket, surrounded by warm soft plant life. 

They would get everyone back.  Hopefully the others had landed in better places than Pidge had.  They had to find Shiro first, get him into a healing pod and then he would be fine.  Pidge hoped the others would be okay until the castle could come get them.  Keith’s Lion was probably as out as Green was, maybe worse.  Lance and Hunk were hopefully alright.  She hadn’t meant to get so attached to them, but now the other two thirds of the Garrison Trio were just as important to her as Keith, as Shiro.  She needed them all here, safe and sound.  Then maybe she would be able to relax, finally be able to feel like she could breathe again. 

The Black Lion’s signal popped up, radio waves rippling across galaxies.  Pidge shook her head to clear away the déjà vu.  She _was_ Voltron now (well, one-fifth of it).  This wasn’t Earth.  And she wasn’t listening in secret, fishing the stars for anything she could find.  The Castle called to the Black Lion, and the Head of Voltron answered.  Pidge had a Lion waiting for her down below, and she wasn’t alone. 

This wasn’t at all like before.  And it wouldn’t take nearly so long.  Allura put her hands on the control spheres, and a wormhole opened up in front of the castle, replacing the junk with spiraling waves of blue and white so bright that the nebula seemed to dim in the light. 

_Hold on, everyone.  We’re coming._

* * *

“Thank you.”

Keith jumped a little, he’d thought Shiro was asleep.  He looked up from the fire to frown at his brother.  “For what?  You would have done the same.”  _All of it.  You don’t have to thank me for any of this.  I would have done it all no matter what, and I know you would have too._  

Shiro’s eyes were dull and clouded.  He wasn’t getting better, and there was nothing Keith could do to help him.  “How are you feeling?” he asked quietly. 

The Black Paladin huffed a laugh, wincing when it pulled at his side.  “I’m doing great.  Closer to death every minute, we’re very good friends.”  At Keith’s glare, he sighed.  “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

“You have a terrible sense of humor,” Keith grumbled.  He went back to poking the fire.  “You’re going to be fine.  Allura and Coran are going to find us and they’ll stick you in a pod like they did with Lance, and you’ll be all back in one piece.”

“Mostly.”  Shiro held up his right arm, tiny smile growing when Keith glowered at him. 

All bad jokes aside, Shiro was doing really badly.  But Keith had already done all he could with what he had, so he was forced to turn his attention and energy and stress on the fire, and let his brother breathe weakly beside him. 

They were both silent for a while, watching the planet’s sun rise impossibly slowly.  Then Shiro said something that made Keith’s blood freeze. 

“Keith, if I don’t make it out of here… I want you to lead Voltron.”

Okay, Shiro was definitely delirious from blood loss, or the poison the witch had carried on her claws, or dreaming or something.  “Stop talking like that,” Keith hissed, stabbing a stick into the fire and watching the sparks rise into the gray sky.  “You’re gonna make it.”  _You don’t get to die on me.  Not now, not ever._

 _Don’t ever leave me alone.  Please._  

Maybe Shiro heard him.  Maybe he was already unconscious.  In any case, when a portal opened in the dead sky, Keith was the only one to see it.  The only one to feel the fear.  If this was the Galra, or some other new enemy, they were screwed.  Red was barely conscious and certainly couldn’t move, and Shiro was certainly in no shape to pilot Black.  Keith didn’t know if she would let him in again, and he doubted his ability to fight off whatever came through that portal alone, while trying to protect a wounded Human and a weak Lion at the same time. 

So he nearly collapsed in relief when, instead of an enemy ship or an unknown pod coming through the portal, the Green Lion flew through instead.  She was followed by the castleship, but Keith only had eyes for the little Lioness that was flashing down to them. 

_They found us.  We’re safe._

_It’s going to be okay._  

“Shiro!  Look, they’re here!”  When Keith turned to his brother, however, he found Shiro blank and still.  Only the slightest rise and fall of his chest proved that he was even alive at all. 

Salvation was in sight, but Shiro needed medical attention literally yesterday.  Keith began to gather up the few things they had – what remained of the meager first aid kit, Keith’s bayard, both helmets.  He ignored the fire; it wasn’t like there was anything nearby that could actually burn.  The whole planet was a wasteland, and Keith would never know how those monster creatures survived here.  It didn’t matter anymore.  He was never coming back here. 

The Green Lion landed, crouching low and opening her jaws to release a tiny figure, who charged at them so fast Keith might have feared she was an enemy, except for her shining green-and-white armor.  She didn’t slow, though, and nearly knocked Keith off his feet with her force of impact. 

She was talking into his armor, so the exact words were hard to make out.  Something about “you’re safe” and “thank Hubble” and a bunch more that maybe wasn’t in English, or maybe Keith’s ears were ringing too hard. 

He hugged her back.  She was shaking.  But they didn’t have time for this.  “Shiro needs help,” he said, pulling away reluctantly.  Pidge almost didn’t let go, clinging with a surprising amount of force before clearly making herself release her grip.  “He’s… really bad,” Keith continued as they both turned to look at the Black Paladin.  “Whatever that witch did to him, it only got worse.”

“Healing pod,” Pidge said decisively.  Keith didn’t comment on the tremble in her voice, or how pale her face was.  “He’ll be fine, we just have to get him to the castle.  Can Red fly?”  When Keith shook his head, she frowned, but clearly pushed away the issue for later.  “Black can’t either, not without Shiro.”  Keith didn’t say anything about that either.  “Let’s get him and everything else into Green, and the castle can trac Black and Red up while we get Shiro to the medbay.”

It took very little time to gather everything.  unfortunately, Shiro was very heavy, and almost completely unresponsive.  Pidge muttered something about “goddamn gravity, always showing up when you need it the least” (???) and went back to Green, returning with a weird floating stretcher.  Together, she and Keith managed to wrangle Shiro onto it, and Keith pushed it back to the Green Lion while Pidge carried the rest of the things. 

As soon as they were all onboard, Pidge flew them back to the castle.  She explained the situation to Allura and Coran, and Keith half-noticed the castle’s trac-beam begin to move the Black Lion.  But his attention was on Shiro, watching his chest rise and fall weakly, staring at the faint sick violet light that trickled out around the edges of Keith’s badly-applied bandage on his side. 

Keith was totally fine, whole and unhurt and fully aware, but he blinked and suddenly instead of staring at Shiro on a stretcher, he was staring at Shiro in a healing pod.  Still motionless and silent, but hopefully getting better. 

“Allura is tracking the Yellow Lion,” Pidge said quietly from his left.  Keith turned to face her, still feeling like he was moving through water.  “Coran is running diagnostics on Red.  He said she should be okay soon.”

“What happened?” Keith murmured. 

“Where do I even start,” Pidge said, dark humor and bitterness mixing in her voice.  “You went after Zarkon on your own and lost, Shiro fought the witch and lost, we all escaped somehow but then the wormhole ripped and we all got separated, Allura and Coran got stuck in a timeloop, you and Shiro crashed on an empty planet, I ended up in dead space, and Tombaugh only knows where Lance and Hunk are, or if they’re even okay.”

Keith sputtered for a moment.  “Wait, what?  You–” the horror was sinking in now, “you were in space?”

“With a dead Lion and a dead drone,” Pidge nodded.  She’d been so stoic, iron-banded control keeping her together throughout Keith and Shiro’s rescue, but now it was splintering.  “I… I really didn’t like being alone,” she whispered.  Her eyes, staring at Shiro’s sleeping form, were huge and wet. 

Keith’s chest hurt.  Pidge was so prickly, so disliking of people in general, that it was easy to forget that she’d grown up so close to her family.  That she liked to talk to people, when it was people she liked and topics she was interested in.  After losing her brother and father, the wormhole disaster leaving her so completely utterly alone must have been…

Neither of them liked touch all that much, but when Keith reached out Pidge reached back.  They ended up in a tangled little heap at the foot of Shiro’s healing pod, armor crammed together uncomfortably but neither was willing to move. 

Keith hadn’t been alone, not like Pidge had.  He had had his brother, they had been together.  But he’d been so terrified that Shiro might just die right there, beside him with no way to save him.  Keith’s hands were trembling, and he could hear and feel how fast Pidge was breathing where she was pressed against his side. 

He’d been so scared. 

“I piloted the Black Lion,” Keith said quietly. 

Pidge pulled away, just a bit, to stare at him.  “You… what?” she said, her tone blank. 

“Shiro was being attacked by creatures, and Red couldn’t move.  I needed to save him, and Black wanted to too.  I don’t know why she didn’t just go by herself, like she and Green did to protect you and Shiro from Myzax back on Altea.”  Why she had waited for him. “Maybe she was too low-power to move on her own.  But I told her I needed her help, and she let me in.”

Pidge’s eyes were wide, the golden almost glowing in the dim light from the pods.  “You flew another Lion,” she murmured.  “You flew the Black Lion.”

Keith’s stomach twisted.  There was something else.  “He’s okay now, and she didn’t let me do it again once Shiro was safe.”  He wished he didn’t have to say it, wished he could just ignore that it had happened, forget it forever.  But he couldn’t keep secrets.  This one would tear him apart, if he didn’t say it.  The fear and dread would eat him alive.  “Shiro’s healing now, and he’s gonna be okay.  But back on that planet, I think he was really dying.  I think… I think he wouldn’t have lasted until sunset.” 

Here it was, something that felt terrible and dark and sharp.  “While we were there, he told me…”  There was no easy way to say it.  “Shiro wanted me to take over Voltron, if he died.”

Pidge was silent.  Then, “Well, he better not fucking die then, because you literally just tried to take on the evil Emperor of the Universe by yourself and got your butt kicked.”

Keith’s laugh was too loud, cracking the quietness of the medbay.  Pidge smiled too, but then her face grew serious again.  “I’m sorry I yelled at you, earlier,” she whispered.  “When we were leaving, before the wormhole tore.  I… in the nebula, when I thought I was going to die, I kept thinking about how the last thing I said to you was angry.  I didn’t even talk to Shiro at all, or Lance or Hunk.  I thought that I was going to die in space, and none of the last things I said to any of you were good or important.  I’m sorry.”

Keith shook his head.  “No, you were right.  That was an incredibly stupid thing to do, and I could have died or lost Red or gotten Shiro in worse trouble than I did.  It was dumb, and you were honestly right to yell at me.”

Pidge cracked a tiny grin.  “What was Shiro thinking, trying to put you in charge?  You went one-on-one with Zarkon, and he expects you to be the reasonable leader?  Ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous,” Keith agreed.  “He must have been concussed.  It was a terrible idea.”

Pidge was quiet for a bit.  Then she said, so quietly Keith almost missed it, “You do make a pretty good Right Arm though.”

“I have a good partner,” he responded.  Then there was silence. 

They had melted together a bit, and Keith didn’t think either of them could move even if they tried.  Pidge’s breathing had slowed, and Keith had stopped feeling so livewire-frenetic, finally calming and stilling. 

Leaning against the pod, Keith could feel the machinery’s vibrations as it worked to heal Shiro of his terrible witch-sustained injury.  Shiro had been so close to dying, out there.  Keith would have died too, if that had happened.  It would have killed him, regardless of the actual physical survival situation.  But Shiro had made it, just barely, so Keith listened to the healing pod do its job and hoped it never got that close again. 

At least he hadn’t been alone.  Keith glanced down at the top of Pidge’s head where she was leaning against his shoulder.  She was either asleep or very close to it, and Keith made sure not to move, to let her get the rare bits of rest that she could. 

He couldn’t imagine it.  Keith and Pidge were very similar, but neither of them ever wanted to be so completely alone like that.  He was uncomfortable with people and she was disinterested, and they both cared just a little too much when they did get attached.  But the idea of being so alone, lost in space with nothing anywhere near, was deeply horrifying.  Neither of them did well at losing people, even if it was temporary.  He pulled Pidge a little closer. 

They could talk about everything in more detail later.  Still fully-dressed in the Paladin armors, Keith and Pidge dozed at the foot of Shiro’s healing pod, drawing comfort from each other as they waited for him to recover and return to them once again. 

* * *

Three-fifths of Voltron was back, but the Legs were still missing.  Pidge had clawed her way back from the void with sheer luck and determination.  Shiro had been next, wounded but alive.  They happened to get Keith at the same time just because he was with Shiro – the Red Lion was so damaged that she had no signal. 

The Blue and Yellow Lions were alive and functional, and they were together.  Their markers broadcasted strongly from a planet made entirely of water, which Keith commented must make Lance very happy, although Pidge added Hunk maybe not so much.  In any case, that was the next stop. 

By the time they arrived, the Legs of Voltron had already freed the planet from the control of some weird hypnotic eel and won the adoration of the mermaid species that dominated it.  Lance was very proud.  Allura was very exasperated, but they’d actually done some decent diplomacy somehow, and the Mers seemed happy to join the Voltron Coalition. 

Pidge was waiting when the last two Lions returned to the castle.  Keith, uncomfortable with big dramatic reunion scenes (excepting Shiro and Pidge, of course), was in the medbay with Shiro.  But Pidge needed to see them, needed to reassure herself that they were okay and that the Garrison Trio was alright again. 

Hunk came out first.  He clearly wasn’t expecting Pidge to glump herself on him at maximum speed four seconds after exiting his Lion, but he happily obliged the surprise cuddle, lifting the Green Paladin off her feet to hug her back. 

“Oh man, Pidge, you should have been there!  It was so cool – and so scary – and we were still able to breathe so we could explore and stuff, and we met the Queen, and I think I got mind-controlled?  But the rest was kind of awesome.”

Pidge laughed.  It didn’t sound as shaky as she’d been afraid it would.  “Sounds like a wild trip,” she said. 

“I made friends with a mermaid queen!” Lance crowed as he strutted down Blue’s ramp.  “I am the bestest Paladin.  A diplomatic master, right here.”  He squinted at Pidge as Hunk placed her gently back on her feet.  “What did _you_ do on your wild wormhole adventures, Little Green?”

“Built shit out of random space garbage, discovered a new species, and nearly died alone in space,” Pidge replied in one breath with a completely flat face. 

They both stared at her.  “Holy shit,” Lance murmured. 

“Wait, _what?”_  

“And don’t call me little.”

Lance shook his head wildly.  “No, wait, hang on.  What the quiznak happened to you guys?  You did _what_ in space?”

“Start from the beginning, please,” Hunk said faintly.  “Also, can we please move this into the kitchen, because I need real food and I can already tell this is going to take a while. 

As they walked to the kitchens, Pidge recounted being thrown out of the wormhole alone, Green and Rover completely drained of power.  She described the beautiful nebula filled with garbage, the frightening gleaming eyes that turned out to just be fluffy little space bugs.  She left out the Trash Paladins for now, and finished explaining how she built the satellite and the way Green had revived for just a moment to power the signal before dying out again as Hunk made up little plates of the space equivalent of peanut butter crackers, as well as some sliced fruit and pouches of sweet tart juice from a fruit that was unpronounceable to the human mouth. 

“How did you know the castle would come?” Lance asked as they settled on the couch.  Pidge wriggled her way in between the two, and for some reason neither of them protested the intrusion or commented on the rarity of such closeness and contact. 

“I didn’t,” Pidge shrugged.  It was easier to talk about, now that some time had passed and she’d found almost all her people again.  “I had no idea whether they had received it, or if they were even okay.  I didn’t know if I would last until someone found me at all.”

Hunk gulped.  “I mean, I wasn’t a huge fan of being like miles underwater, but that sounds _so bad.”_   He hugged Pidge close, and got all he needed to know from the fact that she didn’t pull away.  “We’re all okay,” he said, pressing his cheek to the top of her head, “everyone is okay and we’re all safe and back together again.  That must have been really hard, but I’m glad you’re alright.”

Pidge nodded, a squishy movement against Hunk’s jacket (they had taken the time to change out of armors, while Pidge had waited impatiently outside, antsy even from those short moments by herself).  “Shiro almost died and Keith flew the Black Lion,” she said, just to change the subject. 

It worked.  Lance exploded into disbelieving squawks, complaining colorfully about Keith always doing things first.  Then he switched into trying to coax Hunk to trade Lions, to which the Yellow Paladin flatly refused.  “Our Lions are ours for a reason,” he said firmly, resisting Lance’s exaggerated pleas.  “They’re for us, and we’re for them.  We’re not supposed to just shuffle them around like trading cards.”

“Besides,” Pidge teased, “how do you think Blue would feel if you went and tried to fly another Lion?”

Lance froze.  “No, wait, never mind.  That actually sounds kind of awful.  Sorry, guys, but Blue is just the best.”  He grinned to himself, pleased, as the other two burst into disagreement. 

They talked for hours. Lance and Hunk recounted their aquatic adventures on the Frozen Planet.  Pidge described the nebula and took a quick break to round up some of her new Trash Nebula Friends, which both Legs were instantly enamored with.  Lance spent forever petting the segmented tummy of the purple one, although whether it had meant to be upside down or not was uncertain.  Hunk instantly fell in love with the tiny green one and the excitable pink one, cooing at them in the most ridiculous puppy-voice.  Pidge was happy to play a bad version of fetch with the red one, tossing a crumpled ball of paper around the room as it burbled after.  It only rarely succeeded in picking the paper up in its mouth, and even more frequently dropped it in distraction on its way back to her. 

“This is my new favorite species,” Lance said, booping the yellow bug on the face as it puttered by. 

“Only hours after leaving, he’s already betrayed the Mers,” Hunk sighed dramatically. 

“No, wait–”

“What a traitor,” Pidge smirked.  She felt much better now, all the pieces settled back into place except the ones that had already been missing. 

Well, almost.  Eventually, they gathered themselves back up, and Pidge herded her bugs back to her room while Hunk and Lance collected more food.  Then all three went down to the medbay. 

Keith was dozing when they arrived, but he sat up at the sounds, blinking.  His hair was sticking up like a particularly disheveled hedgehog on one side. 

Even before they sat down, Lance was already on him.  “Hey, Mullet, what _exactly_ did Pidge mean when she said you _flew the Black Lion?!_   Are you trying to stage a coup?  Make a power grab?  Because I assure you, I will be on Shiro’s side and you will not win.”

“I – what?” Keith had maybe been more asleep than they’d thought, blinking at Lance in bafflement.  “I’m not taking over Voltron?  I don’t want to be the leader?”

“Not convinced,” Lance announced.  “I’ll be keeping a close eye on you from now on.”

“What – of course you will, you’re the sniper and we’re both Right Side.  You’re literally right underneath me.”

“No, I meant–”

“Will both of you please shut up?” Hunk asked.  “Some of us have had a very stressful couple of days, and I personally would like to eat something and then take a nap while we wait for Shiro to come out of the pod.  Which I can’t do if you’re yelling at each other about Lions.”

The two subsided, somewhat guiltily.  Then they ate, trading lighter stories about their times apart.  Keith told them about the boar-lizard-wolves he and Shiro and Black had fought, Hunk and Lance described the culture of the Mer people they had met, and Pidge recounted some of the antics of the bugs.  This led to the realization that Keith had never seen the little creatures, but they were now all too sleepy to go fetch one so it was decided that as soon as everyone woke up Pidge would go get some of the critters and bring them to meet Keith.  Otherwise, they were all mostly planning to stay beside Shiro’s pod until the Black Paladin made his grand and fully-healed exit. 

Plans made and snacks consumed, the four Body Paladins fell asleep in a heap at the foot of the pod in a tangle of blankets, pillows and kicking feet.  Lance snored and Hunk kicked, Pidge burrowed under about six blankets and probably a third of Lance’s body, and Keith shifted around until some strategically-placed elbows made him stop. 

They had never slept so well. 

Later, Coran stopped in to check on them and found the four sprawled in an explosion of blankets at the foot of the single occupied healing pod.  He smiled to see them resting, added a few more blankets, dimmed the lights some more, and left. 


	3. Chapter 3

The castle was quiet, processing the day’s revelations.  There were many. 

There were Galra who were against Zarkon.  There were Galra who were actively fighting the Empire, both in battle and undercover.  One of these “Blade of Marmora” members had taken down the solar shields at Zarkon’s base, back before the wormhole debacle. 

The Blade could be a tremendous resource for Voltron.  Together, Zarkon might finally be defeated.  But Voltron was being tracked, and until they figured out how and stopped it, they could not risk going to the Blade’s headquarters.  They couldn’t risk losing the first real powerful ally they’d found. 

They knew all of this because of a Galra named Ulaz.  Ulaz had gotten Shiro out of the Empire’s prison arenas.  Without him, Voltron would never have formed.  Shiro (and the Holts) would have been lost forever, Allura and Coran would never have awakened, and the Lions would have remained empty and scattered. 

And now Ulaz was dead.  Voltron had been unable to defeat the robeast, and he had sacrificed himself to save the Blade’s best chance at winning this eternal war.  Shiro had had questions.  Hell, _all_ of them had had questions, but Shiro’s might never be answered now.  The person who had saved him was gone, and with him so much information about Shiro’s missing memories.  Maybe someone else knew, too.  Maybe Shiro would remember himself someday.  Or maybe it was all gone forever.  Shiro wasn’t sure how to feel about that. 

They had to focus.  There was a potential ally in this impossible war, but Voltron could not be tracked if they were going to work together.  The Blade of Marmora had no reason to hunt them, so the others sided with Shiro against Allura – this was the doing of the Empire.  Zarkon was hunting the Blade, and hunting Voltron as well.  His two greatest enemies: the mad Emperor could not afford to let them team up.  Which meant, of course, that getting un-tracked and teaming up was now a very high priority.  If they could do it. 

“Sorry we didn’t trust you,” Keith said suddenly into the quiet.  He didn’t look up from where he sat beside Pidge, helping her run diagnostics.  For her part, Pidge kept her eyes locked on where she was running intensive scans of the castle’s systems, seeking anything that wasn’t supposed to be there, that could be betraying their location to the Empire.  They had been talking earlier, quiet, secretive, and Shiro had left them alone.  If they wanted to share with him they would, in their own time.  Which was apparently now. 

Shiro looked up, puzzled.  “I…” he gave a half-hearted smile.  “It’s okay.  I understand why you didn’t.  A strange Galra just showed up in the castle saying he knew me.  I don’t have any memories at all, it was a totally wild claim.  I don’t know if I would have trusted it either, from your perspective.”

Pidge shook her head, frustrated that he wasn’t getting what they were saying.  “But we didn’t _believe_ you.  That’s… that’s really bad.  We can’t do that.  Even if you don’t have any proof, even if you’re not sure – we should have listened.  We should have believed you, even if we weren’t sure about trusting him.”

 _Oh._   This wasn’t only about Ulaz.  Pidge looked a little sick, horrified at having done to someone else what had been done to her – the simple dismissal of one’s beliefs, regardless of having hard proof or not.  And Keith… Keith looked angry.  Whether it was anger at himself, or the Empire, or even Ulaz for going and dying on them without giving answers (Shiro wouldn’t put it past Keith to feel something like that), Shiro wasn’t sure.  But they were both upset. 

He sighed.  “Thank you.  I mean it,” he added upon seeing their matching disbelieving and almost irritated faces.  This wasn’t just something he could pass off.  “You weren’t wrong to doubt, earlier.  If Ulaz had been an Empire soldier or some other enemy, it would have been incredibly dangerous to just blindly trust him.”  He wasn’t sure either Keith or Pidge were capable of blind trust (… except maybe in Shiro himself…). 

“My memories could easily have been falsified – don’t look at me like that, Keith, I _know_ they have that kind of technology – and you were right to be wary.  We can’t afford to walk into traps.  We’re lucky this wasn’t one, but you were not wrong to be cautious.  And when you decided that he wasn’t an enemy, you followed him and put your faith in him because he was worthy of it.  It was the right thing to do. 

“But I appreciate your apology anyway.  It means a lot to me.”

Neither of them looked exactly satisfied at the exchange, but it seemed to be good enough and they turned back to their work, Rover humming as it hovered behind them. 

Shiro had very few memories.  Essentially nothing from the past year, and even before that – his entire life was a lacework of images and short scenes, disjointed and patched.  So much was missing.  The idea that _any_ of his few remaining pieces could be false – either misremembered, made up, or maliciously implanted – was deeply horrifying in a way Shiro didn’t want to examine right now. 

Being disbelieved had hurt.  The way the entire team had so easily discredited him, passed off one of the few solid things he could remember from that year – the thing (the person) that had _ended_ it, no less – had felt like a betrayal, at some level.  Even Keith, who had always had his back, always stuck with him and sided with him no matter what, had doubted.  Allura had her reasons to be suspicious (Shiro hoped she would calm down soon, now that she was reminded not all Galra were Empire), and Pidge was just naturally not particularly trusting. 

It had still been painful.  But the fact that they’d talked about it, later, had discussed this situation and whatever had happened on Earth and thought about it all some more, helped.  Even if only a little bit. 

Ulaz was gone.  Shiro’s memories remained lost for now.  Maybe forever.  But he wasn’t alone, and there were people here who cared about him.  Keith and Katie remembered who he’d been before.  They carried some of those memories for him, even if it was from a different view. 

He and Keith had lived together for years, ever since he’d gotten hold of the future Red Paladin and given him a home.  Keith would do anything for him – he’d proven that more than once.  His was a loyalty and love that would not fade, and Shiro could trust that he would always be there, helping keep Shiro together whether he knew it or not.  Katie knew him as the kind and dorky best friend of her brother, but he wasn’t a stand-in for Matt: he was himself, and he knew she cared about him for it.  Neither of them were who they had once been, but they weren’t completely changed, either. 

Not everything was gone. 

And Lance and Hunk – Lance and Hunk were a balm that they could not know they were.  They had only known Shiro as one of the Garrison’s most popular members, but they’d never met.  Those two carried nothing but a general admiration for Shiro; they didn’t really know who he was.  Now they did, but it was a start from zero with nothing solid overhanging. 

Sometimes Shiro wondered if he was just as shell of who he’d once been to Keith.  Sometimes he wondered if he was a barb to Katie, the one who came back when hers were still missing.  He knew neither of them would ever say those thoughts aloud, maybe didn’t even think them, but he was sure it was in there, somewhere deeply subconscious.  He was different now.  That was just a fact. 

But for Lance and Hunk, he wasn’t.  They only knew stories of someone popular and semi-famous, someone who they had admired and admired still.  A part of Shiro could relax around them that couldn’t with Keith and Pidge.  He didn’t know them and they didn’t know him: their relationship could grow from the ground up, in this time period and with this new and sometimes strange version of Shiro.  And they would accept it. 

“Hey, Shiro!  Wanna come help us take apart half the castle to make sure there aren’t trackers installed in the walls or spybugs hiding in cabinets?”

Speak of Legs and they will appear.  Or something. 

Shiro tipped his head backwards to look upside-down at Lance.  The Blue Paladin was bouncing a little on his toes, clearly excited about the very odd hide-and-seek game he and Hunk were having. 

“Of course, we’ll have to leave the vents to Pidge and Rover,” Lance added breezily, “because nobody else is gonna fit except maybe Keith, although I think if we let him in there he’ll never come back out and then we’ll have a broody emo drifting around the castle through the air circulation systems and I am _not_ about that.”

“What?”

“Nothing, Mullet.  Keep helping Pidge count radar waves or whatever you’re doing.”

“You’re so weird.”

“No, _you’re_ weird!”

“Enough,” Shiro interrupted before they could get into the verbal equivalent of a five-year-old slapfight.  “Sure, Lance.  That sounds fun, although I don’t know how good I’ll be at finding things.”

“We have scanners,” Hunk said, holding one up.  “They’ll help us detect stuff, but the range is short so we have to be pretty close.”

“Hence the scavenger hunt!” Lance added. 

“And all the hard work is left to me, as usual,” Pidge grumbled, but she didn’t sound seriously irritated.  Shiro knew for a fact that she loved the vents.  Honestly, there was probably nothing bad in them, just because she seemed to be in there so often that she or Rover would certainly have found something if there was anything to be found. 

“Poor Pigeon,” Hunk said with a smile, patting the top of her head.  “I’ll help, promise.  We can build a whole new system and everything.”

“Just remember that you promised,” Pidge sing-songed as the Legs left with Shiro.  “Have fun!”

Sure, they were looking for potential devices that were betraying the castle’s location to the Empire.  But they were also just exploring the castle and being generally pretty silly.  Shiro did try to act at least a little bit like a grown-up, because he was the oldest and the leader and all that.  But Lance and Hunk were very good at drawing others into their playfulness, and Shiro didn’t exactly resist very hard. 

He loved Keith, and he loved Pidge.  But here, now, he could wander around with Hunk and Lance and relax a bit.  They looked at him like a friend, but they only saw him _now_ , without shadows of Shiro-before.  Who he’d been before Kerberos, who he’d been before this year, wasn’t changes to who he was for them – it was just who he was, no past reference points to compare with and find lacking. 

It was a strange sort of relief.  Shiro wasn’t sure he would ever talk about it with the others.  Naming it could break what he had with the Legs, and he knew the revelation would hurt the Arms, even if they knew he was right. 

So he would keep this to himself.  He would treasure that there were people who remembered him, and he would value that there were those who did not.  Someone was holding onto his memories, just as someone else was taking him at current.  Both were important, and he would always have both, as long as he could. 

* * *

The castle was dark and quiet, all its inhabitants asleep.  All but one. 

Keith sat alone in his room.  The lights were off, but he’d always had good night vision.  He attributed it to having grown up in a desert with very little artificial light.  In his hands, he held the knife he’d had as long as he could remember.  It was his father’s, or maybe his mother’s – Keith couldn’t remember her, and his dad hadn’t talked about her much.  And then of course he’d died, and none of Keith’s questions could be answered anymore. 

He had thought he had accepted that.  But now he stared at the glowing mark on his knife’s hilt – a mark matched by one on Ulaz’s weapon – and the questions returned with vengeance.  

Keith had recognized the symbol, of course.  The moment he saw it during that first wild fight, battling against someone who defeated them all easily, he’d known.  This person – Ulaz, a Galra, an alien – knew something about Keith’s past.  He could answer the questions that had shadowed Keith all his life. 

And then Ulaz had gone and sacrificed himself for Voltron and died, and Keith was left with more questions than ever.  All he knew was that Ulaz’s weapon was a ceremonial weapon carried by all members of his organization, the Blade of Marmora.  Rebels against Zarkon’s Empire, Galra themselves.  None of the others had questioned Keith asking about knives, it was perfectly in character.  Nobody had ever seen beneath the cloth wrapped around Keith’s knife’s hilt, except for Keith and his father and maybe his mother, whoever she’d been. 

Keith had a Marmora blade.  He didn’t know how, or why.  The nearest person who could have told him was dead, and the others were out of reach until Voltron managed to stop whatever was making it tracked by the Empire. 

He needed answers.  Now, more than ever.  But he couldn’t get them, not until the castle stopped being tracked and Allura agreed to go find the Blade. 

Until then… nobody could know.  Keith was holding a powerful secret in his hands, one even he didn’t know or understand, and if he handled this wrong it would cut him apart.  He’d never kept secrets before, not his own.  But he couldn’t talk to Shiro about this, or Pidge.  It was too uncertain, too dangerous.  So he would keep this still and quiet, buried, until he knew more.  It wasn’t going to be easy, especially keeping this from his brother and Katie.  It was so tempting, to tell them his thoughts and feelings and fears, but the whole thing made him too nervous.  He would just have to wait. 

Keith had waited years with these questions hounding him.  He could wait a little longer. 

*

“Coran, did the Galra ever go to Earth?”

The mechanic blinked.  Keith was having to walk pretty fast to keep up with the Altean, but his question puzzled him enough that he slowed down a bit and the Red Paladin could catch up. 

“Hmmm… not that I know of, no.  You’d probably be well aware of it if they had – the Galra have a tendency of taking over planets they discover, you know!  Or they seem to do that now, I suppose…”  He shook his head.  “No, I wouldn’t think they ever did.  Your planet seems far too small to be of much use, and your species’ technology is terribly primitive.  There wouldn’t be much for Earth to offer to the Empire, I’d say.”

“But the Blue Lion came to Earth,” Keith persisted.  “Could someone have followed it?  Or maybe did it have a Galra pilot, like Black did?  How–”

“Why are you asking questions about my Lion?”

Keith stopped dead.  Lance was standing in his now-open door that they had been passing, glaring suspiciously at Keith.  It made him nervous.  But it was hard to focus on the nervousness and the secret hiding under his tongue, because Lance looked very strange.  He was in weird clothes, loose and shiny and drapey and not at all practical, and on his face was –

“What’s on your face?”

Lance looked terribly affronted.  “A face mask.  Because I care about my skin, because I’m not a mullet-haired desert hermit.”

“Hey–!”

“More importantly,” Lance interrupted, “why are you asking about _my_ Lion?  How many Lions do you even need?”

“I – what?  I only have the one, just like ev–”

“You got your hands on Black,” Lance accused, pointing a finger at Keith’s nose and making him go cross-eyed before jerking back, “and now you want Blue, too!  You’ve always wanted her!”

Keith was completely lost.  All he’d wanted was to know if a Galra could have come to Earth with the Blue Lion, but now Coran was just watching the exchange with a mild expression like he was watching some sports or maybe puppies play-fighting, and was being of absolutely no use.  And Lance was accusing Keith of trying to steal all the Lions, which… what?

“Yeah, I literally spent months looking for her,” he said finally.  “She was the one who was on Earth, and I could hear her.  Of course I wanted to find her.”

Something crossed Lance’s face for a moment, a realization, or an understanding.  Then he shook his head and the glare was back, although it was maybe a little different.  “Well, _I_ found her, and you got your own dang Lion.  I bet Blue wouldn’t even let you fly her!  Blue is with me and we’re very happy together, so don’t try to butt in!  Stick to your own Lion and whatever double-Paladin deal Black has going on!”

“Black doesn’t–!” The door shut in Keith’s face. 

“Ahghghflghrrh,” he said into his hands. 

Coran patted him on the back.  “There, there,” he said mildly.  “It’s not the worst crime to desire a Lion not one’s own.  Why, even Alfor–”

“I don’t want another Lion!” Keith exclaimed.  “I only want Red!  I didn’t want to fly Black, I helped her save Shiro because we both needed him!  I don’t want Blue, even if I’m mad that she talked to me but didn’t let me find her!  I just want Red!  Only Red!”

Coran’s eyes told him he understood.  “And she is yours.  It was quite the feat, for the Black Lion to accept you even for moments.  You all must be quite bonded as Paladins for that to have happened, and you must be very close to Shiro for her to have let you in like that.  Blue called to you because she needed your help, but she knew that she was not yours.  Red is your Lion.  You know that.  We all do.”

Keith let out a huge breath.  “I know.  And I know what Lance meant.  It’s funny now, but I thought – I thought that Black was letting me in because Shiro was going to die.  It scared me.  I don’t want to fly anyone but Red.”

“And I doubt she would want you flying any of her sisters either,” Coran chuckled as they resumed their walk.  “She’s quite territorial about her Paladins, you know.  I remember once, Alfor was having a conversation with Trigel and must have gotten too close to the Green Lion, because suddenly Red…”

They kept moving, heading for the bridge, and a part of Keith relaxed again.  Things would be alright.  He had a Lion, she was his.  Shiro was still alive to fly his own damn Lion.  And Lance didn’t need to worry, Keith was pretty sure he’d make a crummy Leg.  He was happy to leave it to the experts. 

* * *

There are no snowballs in space.  There are, apparently, spores.  Spores that contain a distress message from a faraway planet called Olkarion. 

Pidge was crazy about it.  She was crazy for the spores, crazy for the technology.  Her eyes practically glowed gold as she talked, hands animated like she rarely let show so freely.  Rover picked up on it, zooming around her and beeping excitedly whenever Pidge paused to draw breath.  There were words about codes, about someone named Turing (or maybe Turing was the machine, Keith wasn’t sure – you could never be quite sure, with Pidge), about translation and genius and –

Shiro finally got her back on track, which was nice because Keith had been a little concerned that Pidge might have started speaking in tongues at some point.  Also, if left unchecked with that level of interest and excitement, Pidge wouldn’t have stopped until she passed out or something. 

Coran’s little floating echo-cube was kind of weird, but was fun and much more relatable than whatever Pidge had been talking about.  Lance and Allura and Shiro looked kind of relieved too; Keith was glad he wasn’t the only one lost. 

Sometimes he forgot.  He and Pidge had a bond forged in fire and anger and loneliness (not quite so lonely, though, with each other), so it could be easy to forget sometimes.  Yeah, she was technically speaking English – at least most of the time – but there really was this whole other language that Pidge could speak and Keith could not.  Hunk spoke it, some at least, and Coran too.  But wasn’t something Keith would ever know.  He just had to stand back and watch, Pidge making magic grow beneath her fingers, lightning turning into _something_. 

They were both Human.  The universe was so big and it felt like they were meeting new species every day, but that at least was something they had in common.  Except Humans – and every other species – were really so wide and varied within their own group, though that was easy to forget when exploring an entire universe of beings.  Keith was fast and Pidge was clever and they were both Human and so similar in some ways but utterly different in others.  He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. 

Keith didn’t understand the language and world that Pidge switched to sometimes – he was pretty sure that only Hunk could follow her there – but he did understand fighting, and protecting.  Olkarion, this planet he’d known nothing about until ten minutes ago, was in danger and under attack.  So they would rescue it.  Shiro had said to leave the math and science to Pidge.  Keith could do that.  He would fight and he would defend.  That, at least, he could do. 

But it turned out they weren’t going to the incredible hyperadvanced technological cities of Olkarion (and when Alteans said it was advanced, that must be pretty impressive).  They were going to the forest. 

Keith loved nature.  People were strange and unpredictable and unkind, but nature was… quiet, even when there was sound.  It was open and enclosed at the same time.  There was always a sky, somewhere.  It was safe. 

He’d been born in a desert.  Grew up there, too, with sand and stars and cacti and coyotes, wild and clear and home.  Green was rare, something to be treasured.  Sure, he knew that in other places it was so common as to be completely unremarkable, but seeing bright green growing things never failed to amaze him.  Flying over Olkari’s forests, thicker than anything left on Earth, was a breathtaking experience. 

Although clearly not for everyone.  _“Ugh, I hate the outdoors,”_ Pidge grumbled, static and irritation fuzzing her voice.  _“Nothing but sunburn and poison oak.  Why can’t we ever go anywhere cool?”_

“I like it,” Keith said quietly.  “It’s nice.  Living, thriving.”

 _“Sure, mister desert hobo,”_ Lance said, but he sounded pretty awestruck too.  This really was the most plant life any of them had ever seen.  Keith had only ever lived in Arizona, Earth, but although the planet had once held massive forests, very few remained.  This was new for all of them.  It was almost overwhelming. 

As it turned out, the forest wasn’t empty.  Honestly, Keith didn’t really think forests _could_ actually be empty – deserts had so much in them, and forests just had even more.  In any case, the forest of Olkarion (this bit, at least – it was an entire planet, after all) had Olkari living in it, and the Lions were drawn to them like magnets, or magic. 

Shiro literally greeted them with “We come in peace,” and the other Humans had to hold in some badly-timed laughter.  After that, though, they turned out to be amazing. 

The Olkari were an insect-like species, smaller than Galra or Alteans but bigger than the Arusians, with a fine spindly build and large eyes in their leafbud-shaped heads.  Their planet had been taken over by the Empire decapheebs ago, although they had never stopped fighting it.  Those spores must have drifted for so long, waiting for someone to catch them and break their code.  Without that space-snowball fight, without Pidge’s clever mind… Olkari could have remained exiled from itself for even longer.  They couldn’t win against the Empire’s forces alone – and there was something else keeping them from resisting too much. 

The Olkari king, Lubos, was held prisoner in the center of the largest Galra-ruled city, a hostage to keep the rest of the population under control.  They couldn’t fight back to the fullest extent of their force, couldn’t use all their weapons and power, because if they did Lubos might be hurt or killed, and that was not an option. 

Keith wondered, briefly, how a single person could have such importance, how holding this king could let the Empire keep an entire planet of prisoners and rebels from fighting back. 

Then he looked at Shiro, and he understood. 

Without Lubos held over their head, the Olkari probably wouldn’t remain prisoners for long.  Considering they looked like very large stick bugs, they actually seemed to be incredibly advanced and powerful.  Keith was pretty sure he liked their more naturalistic tech over the intensely sterile feeling he always got from Altean stuff, but he decided it was probably best not to tell Allura that.  In any case, they would be a powerful ally if they were free, and with Lubos out of danger the Olkari would likely be able to do a good deal of the liberating all on their own with minimal help from Voltron or the Castle of Lions.  So that was what they were going to do. 

And the Olkari could help.  When Ryner led them to the armory, none of the Humans were sure what to expect, or if to expect anything at all.  After all, it was just a grove.  Pretty, but not terribly useful for combat. 

That is, until Ryner touched a tree and a gigantic wooden mech grew out of an acorn-shaped thing, thudding to the ground with a crash that shook the earth. 

Hunk’s jaw dropped.  Pidge’s eyes were enormous. 

“… can I get one of those?” Keith asked faintly. 

Ryner smiled, her insectlike face shifting in a way that was utterly strange but somehow still recognizable for what it was.  “That is exactly what I was going to offer,” she said, eyes glittering. 

She extended a hand, holding out a set of circlets made from some kind of vine or wood.  “Put these on,” she instructed, and the Paladins dutifully obeyed.  She explained how to connect to the tree or something to make it grow the mech, but it was mostly a bunch of words that Keith didn’t understand, and from the looks on their faces, the others didn’t really either.  Even Pidge and Hunk looked a little puzzled. 

They did give it a good effort.  Keith pressed his hand to the trunk of his selected tree.  It looked like a tree, but this was nothing like anything from Earth.  Aside from the fact that it could literally grow mecha, this was an alien tree species growing on an alien planet.  Not that Keith really knew much about Earth trees, either. 

Keith closed his eyes and tried to feel for the tree’s life energy.  He reached out the way he always did with Red, looked for the spark he knew in her.  But there was no response, none of the heat that Red’s presence always produced.  It was like touching a rock, or a piece of metal.  He couldn’t feel anything but the bark beneath his skin, rough and sun-warm but otherwise totally unresponsive.  There was nothing there, not for him. 

The others weren’t having much luck either.  Shiro had his Focused look on, but his tree was as responsive as Keith’s.  Hunk was sticking his tongue out a little, face furrowed up and pressing his hand against the trunk like he might just push it over. 

“I think mine is just a tree,” Lance said glumly. 

Pidge was still eyeing the one before her.  After a long moment, she reached out and put her hand to it, tiny soft Human palm to giant gray-barked alien weapon tree.  She closed her eyes. 

Keith had seen this look on her face before, at the Garrison, facing computers Earth-based and alien that held what she wanted to know, making discovery after discovery.  He knew that look, that determination, so he wasn’t all that surprised when one of the acorns on Pidge’s tree suddenly swelled and grew, and a mech dropped down to land heavily on the ground. 

The impact startled her, the Green Paladin’s eyes flying open to stare at her creation. 

 _“Cool,”_ Lance murmured.  Admittedly, he was now holding one of the petal-like energy guns that some of the nearby shrubs seemed to produce on command, so he wasn’t exactly short on cool gadgets himself. 

“No fair,” Hunk whined.  “I want a giant tree robot!”

“Grow your own,” Pidge snipped, although she still sounded pretty in-awe herself. 

“Tried.  Can’t.  Make me one, Pidge, pretty please?  I’ll build you a play structure for your trashbugs!”

“Well done, Green Paladin!” Ryner exclaimed as she came over to inspect Pidge’s new mech.  “You must have a great connection with nature, to have adapted and accomplished this so quickly!”

“Not really,” Pidge shrugged as Keith held back a snort.  _Pidge, the nature fan.  Yeah right._   “I’ve got more allergies than I can count, and pale skin does not lend itself to an outdoorsy kinda thing.  I’m really more of a lock-myself-in-a-room-and-stare-at-a-screen-for-a-week sort of person.”

“She’s our tech expert,” Shiro clarified. 

Ryner nodded.  “I see.  You understand that everything is all made up of the same cosmic dust and arranged by the laws of mathematics.  We are all connected – trees, metal, stars, Humans, Olkari, even your mysterious Lions.”

It was a powerful statement.  The idea that a tree and a star could have anything in common, the idea that a Human and an Olkari – two species that had never met until just now – could be similar in any way, it was… world-shifting.  Keith wondered if Ryner would include the Galra that had been destroying her planet in that.  He looked at her eyes, old as tree roots, and thought she might. 

He thought about Ulaz, about the symbol on his Marmora blade that matched Keith’s.  Maybe Ryner was right.  Maybe things were more connected than Keith thought. 

Pidge didn’t seem terribly impressed by Ryner’s little speech, though.  She crinkled her nose, looking for just a second more tech-obsessed teenager instead of powerful Green Paladin.  “Does this mean I have to start gardening?”

* * *

Nothing was what they had thought.  The Olkari had remained imprisoned for so long because their king was being held hostage, captive against his will and in danger of execution if they rebelled.  A whole planet under Empire control, all for a single life. 

Except Lubos was totally fine.  He was sitting on a soft squishy couch, eating trays upon trays of food and blubbering at some intergalactic soap opera that was playing on a screen bigger than Keith’s bed.  A planet captive and struggling, and their King had abandoned them, living in luxury while his people hid in the forest and grew weapons from trees to fight back the tiny bit that they could. 

Olkari science and technology was incredibly powerful, rivaled only by the all-but-extinct Alteans, and Lubos had just… handed it over.  He’d designed the cube that the Empire was planning to use as a weapon of mass destruction, Ryner had confirmed it.  But it hadn’t been under extreme duress like everyone had thought.  Olkari King Lubos had betrayed his people, betrayed the universe. 

Keith had only felt fury like this rarely before – at the Garrison for lying about Shiro, at the Empire for everything they’d done, both to Shiro and the universe.  He wasn’t the only one. 

Shiro was angrier than Keith had ever seen him.  “You turned your back on your people to save your own skin,” he gritted out.  His Galra arm remained dark, but his hands were shaking with rage.  This felt personal for Shiro.  Shiro, who had given up his arm and his memories to save a single person.  Shiro, who would willingly die for any of the Paladins, for anyone they ever tried to save.  Shiro, who was self-sacrificial to the point where it was really honestly concerning. 

Keith knew a thing or two about loyalty too.  He would do anything for the people he loved _(getting kicked out of the Garrison to hide Katie, pleading with Black to let a Paladin who wasn’t hers in so that they could save Shiro together, going head-to-head with Sendak, filled with rage at what the Galra had done to his friends, his_ family _)._  

He and Shiro would do anything for those they loved.  Lubos just threw them all away.  He was a king, a ruler, responsible for all the lives on this planet.  And yet here he sat, soft and heavy in a way that Olkari should not be, having given up all his secrets to help the Empire build an incredibly powerful weapon while his people slaved and fought and hid right outside his walls. 

And the traitorous king had just called in backup.  The room was flooded with Empire sentrybots, their clunky artificial build a jarring contrast to the smooth elegant naturalness of Olkari design.  This couldn’t end well.  But they had to get Lubos out, alive and unharmed.  Despite everything he’d done, he was the Olkari’s king and leader, and it was not for the Humans to decide what they did with him once they learned of his actions. 

Lance was arguing with Lubos, needling the defensive king and clearly just as up in arms about his betrayal as the rest of them.  Lubos sputtered weak reasoning, deflecting blame onto anyone but himself.  Keith had never thought he’d ever be grateful for Lance’s motor mouth, but all eyes in the room were on him and Lubos as Paladin and King bickered back and forth.  Nobody was watching Keith, silent Red Paladin in the shadow of Black’s armor.  So nobody was expecting it when he finally made his move. 

“You’re no king.”

Lubos saw him move, saw him coming, and tried to run.  But he was slow and clumsy.  The other Olkari, a male who was smaller than Ryner with sharp eyes that had lit up when Lance had announced the imminent rescue, darted forward and blocked his king’s flight with ease.  Then with a shove, he pushed Lubos to Keith, where he was instantly trapped with a Bayard at his throat. 

“Keith?!” Lance yelped, startled at his teammate’s sudden violent action.  Shiro stopped him with a hand on the Blue Paladin’s chest, watching Keith carefully.  He trusted his brother, and would follow the Sword’s lead for now. 

“L-Lasai, what are you doing?!” Lubos cried, wriggling weakly against Keith’s iron grip.  He didn’t fight much, though, even though the Red Bayard remained in its inactive form.  Keith was beginning to see why the Empire had had such an easy time with him. 

“You betrayed our people,” Lasai hissed, a warning clicking layered in his words.  “I won’t live this lie anymore.  You do not deserve to be the King of Olkarion, not after what you’ve done.”

The hostage had switched hands.  If the Galra valued Lubos’s knowledge, they wouldn’t want him to come to harm.  The Olkari wouldn’t fight without their king, even if he had betrayed them.  Keith wasn’t going to hurt him, of course.  But he needed to get them all out of here alive.  Keith had a reputation, and he was going to use it: as far as the Galra were concerned, the threat was there.  They would –

Oh.  Turned out the Empire was just as evil as always.  They didn’t value the weak-willed king at all. 

“Guards, put them all out of their misery,” the commander ordered with a smile.  He was about to get rid of the Olkari king and four-fifths of Voltron in one go, of course he was pleased. 

Unfortunately, he’d forgotten about that last little fifth.  She announced herself with a series of laser blasts that destroyed most of the room (completely missing the Paladins and Olkari but absolutely decimating the majority of the sentrybots) and sent up a huge cloud of dust. 

 _“Your ride’s here,”_ Pidge announced through the Green Lion’s speakers as the Shield of Voltron stuck her large head through the new hole in the wall. 

Time to go.  While the commander and his remaining bots struggled to regroup, the Paladins leapt onto the Green Lion.  Keith hauled Lubos on with Lance’s help, Shiro practically carrying Lasai one-handed as Hunk covered the departure, firing enormous cannon blasts wildly into the smoke.  It wasn’t like there was anything in there they needed to be careful of anymore. 

But they weren’t followed, and soon the city was receding in the distance as Pidge flew them back to the forest.  The others made their way into the Green Lion and rejoined her in the cockpit, crowding to fit the whole group. 

Lubos was quiet except for blubbering.  He clearly still thought that Keith and Shiro were going to kill him.  Keith had only attacked to bluff the Galra – which evidently hadn’t worked, but no harm done – but he couldn’t exactly say the same for Shiro.  The Black Paladin’s eyes still burned with rage whenever he looked at the Olkari king, and Keith was willing to bet that there was a high chance Shiro was going to deck him before this was all over. 

Lubos was utterly useless.  Lasai was not.  As the Green Lion made her way back to where Ryner and the other rebels were waiting, the smaller Olkari told them about how Lubos agreed to turn on the Olkari in return for safety, even voluntarily contributing his knowledge of weaponry to them. 

“I was trying to protect you, my son!” Lubos sputtered, waving his arms weakly.  “The Galra are too powerful.  They would have destroyed the planet, killed our people, hurt _you_ –”

“You weren’t protecting _shit_ except yourself!” Lasai snapped.  His eyes glittered, antennae stiff with fury.  “We could have resisted, could have driven them back.  But you were too scared, and you turned on everything you were supposed to stand for.  You have disgraced Olkarion and our people.  You are no king.”

He was still manacled.  Lubos hadn’t borne a single restraint, but Lasai’s spindly wrists were bound with Empire-make handcuffs.  Keith wondered if he’d tried to resist, tried to fight back against everything his father had done. 

Shiro reached out, and when Lasai let him, he broke the chains with a swipe of his glowing purple hand. 

“Thank you,” Lasai murmured, rubbing carefully at his skin.  He eyed Shiro’s hand, head tilted and a focus in his eyes that made Keith a little nervous. 

“I was a prisoner as well,” Shiro said, raising the Galra arm so he could see it better.  “They took my team and made me fight in their arenas, and they gave me this.  At least it can do some good, now.”

After getting permission, Lasai took Shiro’s arm in his hands, looking it over and running his fingertips across the surface, the joints.  He hummed, a sound a bit like a distant hive of bees.  “Remarkable work, but not willingly received.  The Empire is harsh and cruel, and it shows.”  Then he let go and said no more, but Keith had spent enough time with Pidge to recognize the look on the Olkari’s face – he was thinking about something, and thinking hard. 

Lubos’s return to the Olkari went about as well as could be expected.  The looks on the people’s faces was heartbreaking – their king, their highest being, had turned on them, was weak and fat and had willingly helped build the cube and enslaved the populace of Olkarion.  Everything they had believed in crumbled as they looked on in silence at their disgraced ruler.  

Shiro, leader to his core and unable to watch this, tried to rally them.  They had endured so much; now they needed to be strong and grow past this.  The Empire was not gone, and the cube was completed.  Now more than ever, the Olkari needed to use their power and their unity, and win this once and for all. 

Ryner recollected herself first.  The elderly Olkari shook her head briefly, standing tall with a rustle like leaves or beetle wings.  Ryner had led the rebellion all this time, she wasn’t going to give it all up now.  She turned away from Lubos, and that was it.  The former King of Olkarion was gone, a dead leaf falling from a tree.  The Olkari would survive.  Roots ran strong, even if the whole had been weakened and poisoned for so long.  They would make it past this, grow through it, and they would bloom anew. 

“Voltron,” Ryner said, her words bearing the weight of the leader she had always been.  “Things are changed, but Olkarion still wishes to be free of the Empire.  Will you stay with us and fight?  We still want to join the Coalition, and we will contribute all we can to rid all planets of the Empire’s rule.  But first we must be free ourselves.”

Shiro smiled.  “We never changed our plan,” he said.  “Olkarion and everyone else should be free.  We’ll help you, although I think the Olkari are powerful enough to take care of most of the situation themselves.”

“We’ll take on the cube,” Pidge said, “while you use the mechs and drive out the Galra from the cities.  Once the prisoners know Lubos isn’t hostage, they’ll be able to help too.  Without the cube they won’t have anything.”

“They’ll be running before you know it,” Lance added.  “The Empire doesn’t stand a chance, not after what we’ve seen you guys do.”

Ryner smiled a little.  Her planet and people had been imprisoned for so long.  She had fought it, hard, but in some ways it had started to become just the new normal.  These Humans, strange foreign species though they were, had changed everything.  They had inspired everyone, Ryner most of all.  They had freed Lubos, and although he’d turned out to be a traitor, it had still been kind of them.  The former king could no longer be used as a hostage.  And they had also freed –

Ryner turned suddenly to face Lasai, who blinked widely at the attention.  “My prince, I apologize,” she said, a low chirp to her tone like a cricket.  “I should be consulting you, as well.  Do–”

 “No, Ryner.”  Lasai shook his head.  “You have led this resistance from the start.  I was with Lubos the whole time, I don’t know anything about how it’s being run, how best to manage our resources.  You are more experienced in this.  I defer to you.”

Ryner bowed her head.  “As you wish.”  Then she looked back up, and her eyes glittered with energy, all antennae raised with excitement.  “Now, together, Voltron and Olkari – let us free Olkarion!”

* * *

They had faced robeasts and warships, technology beyond any of Earth’s greatest imaginings.  But this fucking cube was the worst enemy Keith thought they’d ever fought except for maybe Sendak.  It just seemed to absorb everything they threw at it and send it back even harder. 

Pidge said it was _learning_ , using their own attacks against them, which was terrifying considering it was just a giant black cube.  Keith even cut it in half with the Sword, and instead of dying like a nice polite enemy it split into four and just kept going. 

Voltron split as well, shearing into its separate Lions to try and keep up with the cube – cubes, now.  But they still weren’t winning.  If anything, they were maybe on the losing end of things, which was both kind of embarrassing and starting to get pretty alarming. 

Nothing they tried was working.  Hunk bodyslammed a cube and it just hit back, hard enough to knock the heavy Yellow Lion to the side.  Shiro was tussling with one, trying to at least keep one away from the other Lions.  Lance froze one with Blue’s ice beam, but it broke free and returned a freezing beam of its own that encased Blue’s head entirely until Keith swept in and melted it with Red’s heat ray. 

They didn’t know how to stop them, and they were kind of losing, but the very thought of these things getting into Zarkon’s hands was more than enough motivation to keep fighting.  They attacked, the cubes returned the favor with equal force, and there was no end in sight. 

And then Pidge got hit.  Two cubes targeted her with simultaneous bolts (did they have a shared intelligence?  Did they even _have_ an intelligence?  This was so beyond Keith’s field), and the Green Lion went down hard, crashing into the thick canopy and vanishing in the depths of the forest. 

“Pidge!” Everything in Keith was screaming to follow, to go to her and make sure that she was alright, that she was _alive_ after a crash like that.  But he had two of the cubes on him, one of which seemed to be figuring out the heat ray (at this point, he was afraid to even try the railgun).  He couldn’t leave, couldn’t let the others fight the cubes alone, couldn’t risk getting hit while he was distracted and having two Lions down instead of one. 

_Please be okay.  I can’t come to you.  Please, just be okay._

So he stayed, trapped in the sky and fighting a fight he was increasingly sure they weren’t going to win.  Shiro went instead, trusting the Legs and Sword to at least keep the cubes occupied while he tried to make sure he hadn’t just lost one of his own. 

It didn’t look good.  Pidge wasn’t responding to their calls on the radio.  They were three Lions against four cubes, and no matter how he tried to think it, Keith wasn’t sure how they were going to get out of this one. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, new content! i'm not sure if i'm going to edit this chapter to include the next section or so, or leave that for ch5, we'll see. in any case, from here on out the rest of s2-ish is going to be posted here, and further seasons will have their own works as well. slightly easier to read for yall, and slightly easier to write for me. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading. you are all super awesome and i hope your lives are going okay and you're not too stressed and your weather is what you want it to be. see you soon!

Pidge opened her eyes to total darkness. 

No, that wasn’t true.  There was something, a faint greenish glow.  A new leaf, about to burst.  A power button waiting to be turned on. 

 _Paladin._  

That wasn’t Green’s voice – so much as a giant metal ship could have a mental voice.  No, this was a living thing, different from Green.  A living thing outside the Lion, who could speak to other living things.  That was –

Everything came flooding back.  The cube (cubes, now), the fight, getting hit… Now Pidge could feel her body, and it wasn’t feeling great.  Green was pretty damaged too.  Pidge’s head rang, Green and Ryner’s voices blurring, probably a concussion somewhere in there to boot, but she needed to focus. 

 _You must return to the fight.  Your friends need you.  They cannot do this alone._   Ryner’s voice was like the hum of crickets in a summer night, distant but pervasive.  This wasn’t the powerful presence of Green, or the flowy feeling of the Paladin bond.  Ryner was _talking_ to her. 

“I… I don’t know if I can,” Pidge mumbled.  She hoped Ryner heard. 

 _We can repair your Lion’s form.  But you must bond with her spirit if she is to fly again._  

“Bond – we are?  I already bonded with her, when I first got her.”  It felt like centuries ago, that jungle planet with its strange sloth guardian and the sleeping Lion at the heart of the forest.  She wondered if the Olkari had ever been there. 

_Yes.  But it must be stronger.  Remember, you and Green are made of the same essence.  Olkari and Humans, trees and stars.  You and your team are one.  Draw on that.  Strengthen your bonds._

_Grow._

“Okay,” Pidge breathed.  She closed her eyes to the empty darkness, centering herself, focusing.  She reached out the way she had with the mecha-tree, the way she always did with Green.  But this time, she reached farther, deeper.  Somewhere, she could hear and feel the others fighting and calling to her.  She wanted to respond, wanted to call back.  A Lion separated from the pride was always in danger, but now the pride was in danger too. 

 _Reach.  Grow._  

At first there was nothing.  The empty darkness echoed.  And then suddenly something bloomed, bright like a sprout or a data tree (or the tree of life).  It burst forward, spreading up, down, out across everything.  There was no more darkness, no more nothingness.  Everything was bright and light and Pidge could see _everything_. 

The Green Lion got up, standing on strong legs, claws digging deep into the soft earth, and she _roared._  

As the Lion flew, Pidge didn’t even look out the windows.  She didn’t need to.  She knew the location and form of every tree and plant beneath her, felt the shapes of every Olkari, every mecha and weapon.  She felt the other Lions, wounded and grounded but still trying to fight.  And she felt the cubes.  Each one, where it was, how it was moving, what it was doing.  She could feel it _all._  

“I’m here!”  _Come on,_ she didn’t say.  _We can do this.  Let’s go._  

She didn’t need to say it. 

Green wasn’t the fastest Lion.  She was beaten by both Red and Blue in that aspect.  But now she flashed and darted like a hummingbird, dodging every attack and not wasting any energy at all.  The cubes couldn’t surprise her, not anymore.  They couldn’t sneak up on her.  Pidge knew where they were, knew what attack they were going to use before they began it, what they were going to try next.  She was circuits ahead of them, ahead of everything. 

There, an opening.  _Now._  

The Lion took over, acting on Pidge’s detection but working on her own.  The Shield on the Lion’s back shifted, a cannon rising up in its place.  It was smaller than Red’s railgun, more sleek and compact.  Pidge had never seen it, knew nothing of it or its abilities, but she trusted in her Lion and together they fired. 

A perfect hit – no way to miss when you can sense exactly where your target is and what it’s doing.  The cube turned dark for a heartbeat before flashing bright green, and then it burst into vines.  Bright powerful ropes of green force exploded out of nothing, wrapping around the cube like snakes as the weapon fell, lifeless, back to the earth. 

After that, it wasn’t even a fight.  Pidge and Green’s new vine cannon took the rest of the cubes out with little effort, backed by the rest of the Lions.  Even as they took the last of the weapons down, they could see the Galra ships taking off, evacuating from the planet they had kept in a chokehold for so long.  Their weapons were defeated, their hostages lost, their prisoners rebelling – the Empire had nothing left here. 

They returned to the Olkari base, but once Pidge had landed she found herself unable to move.  The awareness was fading, that bloom of _everything_ dimming back to something warm and distant like sunlight through leaves, a computer program closing down, but it was a lot.  It felt like she was trying to cram something much bigger back into her own skull.  The whole universe just didn’t fit in there, and for those moments, flying Green, fighting the cubes, she’d really felt like she could feel everything, on Olkarion and beyond, to the stars and the darkness past them. 

 _“Pidge, you okay?”_ That was Shiro’s voice.  Not in her head, like Green and Ryner, but close.  Radio.  She had her helmet on.  _“Do you need me to come to you?”_  

Right.  She was still in Green.  They were all probably gathering with the Olkari, celebrating their victory, and she was still sitting in her Lion.  Pidge sat up, moving carefully and feeling stiff and exhausted.  “Yeah,” she said, clearing her throat when the word came out raspy.  “I’m alright.  I’m coming out now.”

Moving was hard.  Her body felt both too small and too heavy, dragging through motion, too slow.  Although gravity was too fast, and balance was very difficult.  Pidge wondered if this was what it was like to be drunk.  Nobody in her family drank much, and she’d never had any interest in it, or friends to get secretly drunk with.  But now she definitely felt _intoxicated_.  Drunk on the world, ha. 

Her team was outside.  They’d just won a very difficult battle, and they were worried about her.  She’d been able to feel it, earlier when she could feel everything, and she could still feel it now through the Paladin bond. 

Moving was hard and she was more than a little wobbly, but slowly she made her way out of Green (now dark and quiet, like she was tired too), and down to where the other Paladins were waiting for her. 

Lance and Keith were talking over each other, excited and anxious.  “Pidge holy shit what _was_ that thing, the–” “Jesus, Pidge, are you okay?  You–” “–with the vines–” “–freaking _crashed_ –” “–man I was so _worried_ –” “–how did you _do_ that–”

“I’m fine,” she said, although it wasn’t very convincing as she swayed strongly to the left, losing what little balance she’d had.  Hunk caught her.  Shiro’s eyes were very dark in a paler-than-usual face, staring at her like he was trying to see into her head.  _Sorry, Shiro,_ she thought with an uncharacteristic giggle, _I think that’s my power now._   Not mind-reading, not quite, but – life-reading?  She’d been able to see and feel everything, and had been able to all but predict the cubes’ movements.  Did that count as mindreading? 

Now they all looked worried.  Pidge tried to tell them that it was okay, that she was just drunk on life, on _feeling_ life, but words were escaping her.  She felt a little dizzy. 

The next thing she knew, Hunk had led her over to a nearby tree, sitting her down carefully in a little space between the roots.  Instinctively, she closed her eyes, reaching out.  Was this one of the mecha-growing trees?  Something else?  How deep did its roots go, how far did its branches reach –

“Hey, quit that.  You’re supposed to be resting, not going right back in!  Come on, Pidge.” Hunk’s voice was at the same time calm and anxious.  “You were amazing back there, but the battle’s over.  You can stop now.”

“I’m not sure I want to,” she breathed quietly.  The others were standing back, giving her space, but Hunk was right beside her.  She wanted them all close.  She wanted that connection again. 

Pidge had never liked people, never liked much of anything besides computers and space.  Nothing _alive_ had ever really caught her interest, besides robots and those were a different kind of alive.  But this, now, was all so different and incredible.  It was like learning a new program, opening a new system.   _Everything_ was there, at her fingers like it was just waiting for her. 

She remembered reading something, once, about how trees connected their root systems so they could talk to each other.  The “Wood Wide Web.”  She’d thought it was funny, an internet for plants.  She’d wondered what they said, if they had different languages.  If they lied. 

She wondered if planets could talk to each other, too.  The Balmera was kind of like a whale; did it sing?  Did it call across the void?  Did it ever get an answer? 

She wondered if she could find a Balmera, if she reached far enough. 

Hunk’s hand stopped her.  At some point he’d taken her helmet off, although she didn’t remember it happening.  His skin was soft around the callouses of being a mechanic, and warmer than sunlight. 

“Hey.”

She opened her eyes.  The power was gone, faded back like a plant for winter but still there somewhere.  Her body felt like her own.  The tree at her back was just a tree, she couldn’t feel anything beyond the bark and a general flickering of life.  The moss at her feet was the same. 

“You okay now?”

Pidge nodded, taking a slow breath, tasting wind and forest in her lungs.  “Yeah.”  She breathed again, and again.  “Yeah.  I’m back.”

That broke something, and the others rushed forward.  They crowded around her, but it was comforting.  Lance could not shut up about her new vine cannon, babbling almost nonsensically.  They let him, allowing his tension to drain the way it naturally did for him.  Shiro didn’t say anything, just took Pidge’s hand and smiled at her.  He looked a little bit like her dad. 

Keith stared at her long and hard.  Finally he said, “I’m glad you’re okay.”  Something had really spooked him – she was pretty sure it had been watching her fall out of the sky, that hadn’t been pleasant – but now he was reassuring himself that everyone was okay and was settling again.  She nodded at him, watching his anxiety fade.  They’d done it again.  They had won, despite all odds. 

Olkarion had won.  The planet was free.  They were part of the Voltron Coalition now, probably the greatest resource they had.  They wouldn’t be so easy to take down now – the Empire had a real opponent to contend with, far beyond a single castleship and five Lions.  Olkarion would help, now and forever.  This could turn the tide of everything. 

The Olkari were celebrating the end of decapheebs of imprisonment.  The revels would last a long time, but Voltron needed to move on.  They couldn’t afford to stay, but they could at least say goodbye. 

Lasai was stepping into the role of leadership smoothly, the other Olkari deferring to him naturally.  But he still listened to others, asked for the thoughts of those who had fought and led while he’d been imprisoned.  Even now, just hours after his start, it was clear that he would be a better leader than Lubos.  The Humans didn’t even see the disgraced ruler anywhere during the festivities and discussions.  Nobody said the word “king,” but it was clear what Lasai would become.  And it was clearer still that he would be a good one. 

Ryner still held a powerful position, but she obviously was glad to have her prince back and was more than willing to transfer power to him.  For now, though, she would remain one of the dominant Olkari, managing the restoration of her people. 

At the goodbyes with Voltron, Ryner came forward with something small held in her spindly fingers.  “Green Paladin,” she said, voice formal but eyes smiling.  Pidge blinked, but at a shove from Hunk she stepped forward.  “Under extreme pressure and in the middle of a combat situation, you forged a stronger connection with your Lion to save Olkarion.  You understand the connections between everything in the universe, and you used it to win this battle against the Empire.  You will use it again, I know.  You are powerful, beyond your size, beyond your Lion. 

“Many of the vines from your weapon died soon after consuming the cubes’ energy.  That is natural, death is a part of life.  But not all dies, and some returns.”  She held out her hands.  Cupped gently in them was a small pot, and in the pot was a tiny vine sprout.  It was mostly gray-green, but a few leaves the shape of spearheads reached up, green like the Left Arm of Voltron and _living_.  “Olkarion would like to present this to you, Green Paladin, as thanks for your aid and a reminder that anything can return from even the darkest and most difficult of situations.  You are powerful, and stronger than you know.  Thank you for all that you have done.”

Pidge took the pot wordlessly.  She stared at the little vine inside, trying to match it to the massive trunklike growths that had burst from Green’s cannon, from the cubes as they drained and died.  “I’ll take care of it, I promise,” she breathed.  Surely none of the Olkari in attendance could hear her words, but Ryner did. 

The older Olkari chuckled, eyes crinkling gently.  “I know you will, Pidge.  Now go save the universe.  I will see you again.”

It was time to go.  Allura went to drag Lance away from where he was talking/bragging/flirting with a group of Olkari of questionable gender but definite admiration, and Keith had to coax Hunk to leave the two servers he’d cornered into explaining how they made their berry tarts.  Pidge wandered off back to the castle, silent and staring at the pot held incredibly delicately in her hands.  Coran walked beside her, giving her space but providing a stable presence. 

Shiro was about to follow them when he was startled by the sudden appearance of Lasai at his side.  The Olkari was smaller than Ryner, a more solid body but with finer arms.  His eyes were paler, too, the first traces of sunlight on faded leaves. 

“Thank you,” the alien prince said quietly.  He continued before Shiro could awkwardly wave the thanks off like he’d been doing all day.  “For rescuing me, and my father.  Even after everything he did, I’m glad he didn’t die with the Galra.  He won’t be king anymore, but he gets to live free, and that is more valuable than anything I could give you.”

“Nobody deserves to be imprisoned by the Galra,” Shiro said.  His tone was more strained than he’d meant it to come out as. 

“Nobody at all,” Lasai nodded.  His gaze had fallen to Shiro’s arm, but for some reason he didn’t feel the need to hide it, to draw away and change the focus like he always wanted to whenever anyone looked at the thing that had replaced his right arm. 

There were a lot of words that didn’t get said, on both sides.  The moment was thick like mud, but it didn’t weigh heavy.  Finally, Lasai glanced up, meeting Shiro’s eyes for a moment.  “If you ever want an upgrade, come back to us once this is over.  It would be the least we could do.” 

Shiro knew, instinctively, that anything Lasai and Ryner made would be the best, would be perfect.  _Remarkable work, but not willingly received.  The Empire is harsh and cruel, and it shows._   Something from the Olkari, who understood connections, who understood both living and nonliving deeply and equally – that might be the only thing that could ever compare with the arm he’d lost. 

But they had to leave now.  Who knew where Voltron’s work would take them, when he would be able to come back here, to take enough time to get his arm replaced by something new?  Maybe this could happen.  Maybe it couldn’t.  But the offer stood, given freely by someone they had only just met but somehow trusted. 

“Thank you,” he said.  He meant it.  “I – I hope I can take you up on that.  Someday.”

“Someday,” Lasai agreed.  “You will always be welcome on Olkarion, Shiro.  Travel safe, and may the universe look out for you.”

* * *

Once they were all in the castle and Olkarion was receding into the darkness of space, all anyone could talk about was Pidge’s new power.  They were all so proud, excited about her newly-discovered ability and its potential. 

In a moment between all the talking, as Lance and Hunk argued about some minute detail of some possible use of the new everything-sensing Green power, Keith came up at Pidge’s side like a shadow. 

“You’re really okay?” he asked, eyes dark and deep. 

“I’m really okay,” she promised, leaning over to bump him with her shoulder.  He jumped a little, but eventually leaned back against her. 

“I watched you fall out of the sky,” he muttered, almost too quiet to hear.  “You weren’t answering us, and I couldn’t get to you.  I… it really scared me.”

“I’m okay,” she said again.  But words were words, and she would just have to prove to him that she was alive and safe because that was just how he worked.  “I just had to get closer to Green, get into that ability.  It was like finding a network of Everything.  It was a lot, but we made it.  And now I know how to connect to and unplug from it.  I can use it again, if I want.”

“It made you stronger,” Keith smiled. 

Pidge nodded.  “It changed everything.”  The others were paying attention to her again now (she was pretty sure Shiro had had to physically break up the debate between the Legs).  “It’s weird.  I've always been a tech junkie.  That's how I connected with the world.” Nothing else had really mattered, for such a long time.  “But now, for the first time, I feel connected to everything.  I guess it's like Ryner said: we're all made up of the same cosmic dust.” 

 _Everything is connected.  I knew that – I know networks and systems, I know how things link and stack and nest.  But it’s_ everything _, not just technology.  Living things, and nonliving but nontech too.  The entire universe is one system, and I can connect with it now._   It could have been overwhelming.  But Pidge wasn’t alone.  She had Green, and she had the other Paladins.  She had Ryner and Olkarion.  She wasn’t alone, and now all she could see was potential. 

Keith seemed to be having some revelations too.  His eyes were wide, almost glowing purple in the dim light of the bridge, the echoes of starlight through the windows.  “That means we’re all related.  We’re… the same.  The Castle, the stars, the Olkari.  Even the Galra.” 

Pidge nodded silently.  It was an overwhelming realization, she knew that better than anyone.  But it was, she was beginning to understand, absolutely vital.  For Keith, who had always struggled with family, this was a lot.  He would get it, though.  Just like she had. 

It was taking some processing, though.  Keith looked a little shell-shocked, thinking hard, and Hunk snorted at the look on his face.  “Okay, guys, enough of the earth-shaking concepts.  I think Keith is gonna blow his own mind.”

“Am not,” Keith grumbled, but it came out as more of a whine.  But it was enough to break the brainloop, and he relaxed again. 

The fight was over, the danger gone.  The castle flew silently through space as the Paladins played with the echo cubes and drove each other a little bit crazy. 

Shiro stared out the window and thought about Lubos and responsibility and betrayal.  He couldn’t quite look at Pidge.  He knew it was different, knew that his situation was wildly different from the former Olkari king’s.  But right now things were too close to the surface, and every time he caught sight of Pidge’s hair out of the corner of his eye, talking with Lance, bickering with Hunk over how to fix some software glitch, showing Keith how to pet the trashbugs so their purr-putter would get louder – all he could see was Matt, wide eyes, blood on his skin. 

So he looked out of the window and tried to clear his mind.  Lasai’s voice kept drifting in, but he buried those words, that promise, for another time.  Maybe later.  When they had some time, when things were more stable, when –

Alarms sounded, shrieking shrill and loud.  In the empty space Shiro had been watching, a warship and dozens of battle cruisers materialized out of nowhere, gleaming hard and violet and menacing, violently out of place in the quiet stars and darkness. 

They had been found again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not new news: i'm still stupid over olkarion.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all. it's been like over a month and i'm super sorry for vanishing. my thesis is eating me alive and i haven't had time to write fics, much less energy to do that or anything else. 
> 
> i'm going to try as hard as i can to stick to at least biweekly updates and i'm absolutely not dropping this, but it's just gotta take a bit of a back-burner for now. i graduate in like a month and a half so if nothing else i can write lots after then! (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasorry)
> 
> thanks for your patience, and i hope you enjoy the chapter!

“We’re being actively hunted by the most powerful individual in the universe, and you’re… baking?”

Hunk shot her a glare.  “I bake when I’m stressed.  And I am _definitely_ stressed.  So: yes, I’m baking.”

Pidge raised her hands in surrender, Rover whistling lowly at her side as it dropped in height like it agreed.  “We all have our coping mechanisms.  I count backwards or mess with projects until I pass out.  Baking’s fine.”  She squinted at the package.  “What are you making, anyway?”

“Cookies.  At least, I think.  I can’t really read it, but it looks like a cookie package.  That should be a universal-constant kinda thing, right?”

“Whatever you say, man.  I don’t know the first thing about baking.” She glared at the container some more.  “I hate not being able to read Altean.  And I haven’t figured out how to get the translators to work for anything but audio, so it’s all just squiggles.” Rover beeped in agreement beside her. 

Hunk nodded as he mixed something else into the… vibrantly blue mixture in the bowl?  That was slightly alarming.  Space food tended to have weird colors, though, so Pidge didn’t put much concern into that.  “Yeah, I agree.  It’s inconvenient at best, and honestly pretty dangerous at worst?  Like, we can’t read _anything_.  If something happened to Coran and Allura we would be so screwed.”

Pidge thought about when the castle had been taken over by Sendak, staring at a turbine panel and unable to understand any of it, Allura’s voice staticking out in her ear.  _Dangerous._   “I hate it.”

He snorted.  “Of course you do.  You hate not knowing anything, even the smallest detail.  Being unable to read the language that runs the castle?  I’m surprised you haven’t switched the whole thing to English, or somehow imported the language into your brain.  Wait, does that technology exist?  Could we do that?  That would be so awesome.”

Pidge shrugged.  “I dunno.”  But now she had an idea.  “I think Coran said there were Altean language-learning programs in the castle systems somewhere.  I’m gonna find them.”

Hunk waited until he’d finished beating the mixture with what looked like a hand mixer but was twice as big with beaters shaped like pinwheel blades before answering.  “Do it!  We need at least _someone_ to be able to read Altean besides the literal Alteans.  Probably everyone, eventually, but we might as well start with one.”

This was gonna be so cool.  Pidge rocked back and forth on the counter with excitement.  “Man, it’ll be great to be able to understand everything in the castle.  Rover’s been helping where it can, but I only understand binary slightly more than Altean so we’re working on that too.” The robot in question trilled from where it was watching over Hunk’s shoulder.  The mix was now somehow even bluer, almost glowing.  “Hunk, are you sure that’s actually food?  Neither of us can read the package or anything so we have actually zero confirmation that it’s edible.”

Hunk put the mixer down with a huff.  “Like I said, cookie packages are universal.  And I’ve already got a batch almost done, they looked like cookies too!”  He pulled out a tray from the space oven, revealing what looked a lot more like glass than cookie. 

Then again, though, the food goo didn’t really look like food either but they’d been eating it for weeks. 

“Ta-da.” He waved the tray with an exaggerated flourish.  “Cookies.  Look at ’em.  You wanna tell me these aren’t cookies?”

Pidge squinted at the tray.  She was pretty weird about food, so maybe this was more normal than she thought.  “Whatever you say, dude.  You’re the food guy.”

Hunk _hmph_ ed and nodded to himself.  “That I am.”  Then he picked up one of the new (very hot?) cookies and bit into it with a crunch. 

The crunch turned out to be less the cookie (which was undamaged by the bite) and more Hunk’s whole entire face (which was now scrunched up in pain as he kicked a wall and flailed his hands around). 

Very slowly, Hunk turned to face the Arm and her little robot, who were both staring at him.  “Oookay,” he said very quietly, eyes watering.  “I _may_ have overcooked them.  Just a little bit.”

Pidge blinked at him.  Then she hopped up off the counter and announced, “Glad you’re enjoying yourself.  I’m gonna go find the language program, see you!”  Then she scurried off and was gone before Hunk could say anything in defense of his beautiful, precious (painful, diamond-hard) cookies. 

Rover stayed exactly where it was, almost silent but for its little humming engine keeping it hovering in the air.  “Well?” Hunk asked.  “What are you going to do?”

The little bot considered for a moment, then trilled and zipped over to him.  It hovered over the baking sheet and booped questioningly. 

Hunk laughed.  “Okay, okay.  Let’s try this again.  Pidge can learn Altean by herself, it’s my turn for Rover time!”

He couldn’t exactly understand Rover’s answering beeps, but he was pretty sure it agreed.

* * *

Keith had already gotten in the elevator and watched the door shut before he realized he wasn’t alone.  If that didn’t tell how exhausted he was, he didn’t know what else would. 

 _Damn_.  This just wasn’t his day.  Zarkon was hot on their tail, the wormhole machinery was broken, and he was in an elevator with Lance. 

“What are you doing?” Lance’s voice was suspicious.  Keith stared at the wall and wished he’d gotten in a different elevator.  In combat they were getting to be a pretty good team, but Lance was so unpredictable that he made Keith nervous, not to mention whatever rivalry issue he had with Keith (who really did not understand that entire deal at all, and Pidge wasn’t any help explaining it). 

“Allura said that there’s a pool somewhere in the castle.  I want to go find it.”  After Olkarion, Keith was itching to be out in the wilderness, surrounded by green and growth and life.  Out in space he couldn’t get that, but a pool came pretty close.  Keith wasn’t the greatest swimmer, but he could at least paddle along well enough and enjoyed being in water, as long as he could touch the bottom.  “What are you doing?” he parroted back, trying to mimic Lance’s doubtful tone. 

The Blue Paladin was staring.  “Same thing.  Wait, can you even swim?  You’re, like, the most desert-hobo kind of–”

“I can swim!” Keith snapped.  He tried to calm himself.  “Look.  As far as I know, there’s only one pool.  We both want to go.  You stay on one side, and I’ll stay on the other.” _I get the shallow end.  I know for sure that you can swim and love water, so you can have the deep part._  “That way, we both get what we want and we can stay far away from each other.”

Lance stared for a moment more, then shrugged.  “Fine by me.  But if you start coming over to my side I’m gonna put out one of those little kiddy-swim ropes to keep you on your half.”

“I don’t know what those are, but I can promise that I won’t be going anywhere near you, thanks.”

“Hey!” Lance seemed about to go on another one of his mystery tangent-rants when suddenly the lights shut off and the elevator stopped moving. 

“Um…”

“God damn it, Mullet, you broke the elevator!”

“What?  I didn’t break anything!  _You_ probably broke it, you’re always messing with stuff!”

“No, you–”

In a moment, though, they suddenly both realized that they were stuck in an elevator.  The problem wasn’t that they were stuck with each other, it was just that they were stuck. 

“Shit.  How do we get out?”

“Um, I think I saw a movie once where this happened, and the guy got out through, like, a ceiling hatch?”

“Okay.  I’m going to climb up your shoulders and try to find one.”

“No way!  I’ll climb you.”

“I am willing to bet money that if you climb me you will fall off by sheer miscoordination.”

“I – I’ll be fine!”

“Shut up and stand still.”

“Mullet, if you pull on my hair, I swear I’ll – ow!”

“If you quit wobbling around like an air-powered noodle guy maybe I wouldn’t have to yank on your ears to keep my balance!”

“Well, if you weren’t such a weaselly dingo maybe you wouldn’t go for my ears in the first–”

“Found it!”

“You found a noodle guy?”

“I found the hatch.  You’re the noodle guy.  Now come on, let’s get out of here.”

Of course, once they made it out of the elevator they were just standing on top of it in an empty elevator shaft.  At least the shaft had baseline running lights. 

“Okay,” Lance said, flexing his hands as Keith stared blankly up, “the movie had this too.  The guy linked arms with his buddy and they chimney-walked up the shaft to an exit.  So we gotta do that now.”

“They what?”  Keith didn’t know what kind of movies Lance had been watching, but this sounded a lot less doable than just opening a ceiling hatch. 

After Lance’s brief explanation and very weird demo, Keith was even less certain.  But there wasn’t really another option. 

“If we die doing this, I’m going to kill you,” Keith muttered, pushing up another step. 

“If we die, we’ll be dead, dummy.”

“I _know_ that, I meant – never mind.”

“This counts as training,” Lance grumbled.  “I’m making Shiro count it.  We get to skip next training.”

“I don’t skip training.”

“Of course you don’t.”

The entire climb was just balancing and panting and bitching at each other.  But finally the Right-Side Paladins reached a side door, shoved it open (nearly dropping all the way back down in the process), and toppled into a ventshaft. 

Keith’s luck finally turned, and the ventshaft led straight to the pool.  Unfortunately, it dumped them out to fall crashing into the floor, somehow avoiding severe injury but still definitely not the softest landing. 

And then they saw the swimming pool. 

“What the _heck?”_

“Stupid Altean pools…”

* * *

The latest set of alarms had clearly disrupted everyone’s activities, Shiro noted.  He and Allura had been talking (he was worried about her burning out, and was staunchly ignoring the voice in his head saying things about pots and kettles.  The voice sounded a lot like Keith) when the sensors had been set off by the appearance of an approximate metric ton of fighters and Zarkon’s ship right behind them. 

Hunk had on an apron marked with streaks of something very blue, Rover buzzing along behind him with distress.  Pidge looked… disheveled, like she’d been wrestling or something. 

Keith and Lance were both soaking wet.  Shiro decided not to ask. 

“I dropped my good batch,” the Yellow Paladin complained as they took their seats. 

“I still don’t think those were food,” Pidge replied, patting Rover as her bot returned to her side.  “But I almost got eaten by the language program, so I think we’re all having a bad day.”

“Wait, you _what?”_

“Altean swimming pools are on the ceiling,” Keith announced.  Lance just stared morosely at his screens. 

What had they all even been doing?  This was what Shiro got for letting these four out of his sight.  He’d wonder what his team had been up to later, when they weren’t trying to escape from right underneath Zarkon with a damaged teludav and everyone running on empty. 

Later. 

* * *

They’d been wrong.  They had all been so wrong, and it had nearly cost them their lives. 

Allura had been certain that Zarkon was tracking her, that the man who had once been like an uncle to her was using some leftover connection to hunt down the last of what remained from before his monstrous empire. 

Keith had been sure that it was him, somehow.  That his knife, matching the one Ulaz had carried, was somehow acting as a beacon, calling the hated emperor across the void and drawing him to them. 

Allura couldn’t allow the last hope to die because of her.  Keith couldn’t let the ones he loved be hurt because of him.  So they left, a decoy praying that this time Zarkon wouldn’t find the Castle of Lions.  That instead, he would follow them.  Maybe they would die.  But it would be worth it, wouldn’t it?  To save everyone else? 

They were wrong.  While they drifted in emptiness, while the others tried to save the inhabitants of a planet they couldn’t save, Zarkon found them.  Not Princess and Red Paladin – they were safe in the quiet blank darkness of space.  The castle, the Lions, the other Paladins – they had all nearly died, and the planet and its people too, because they’d been wrong.  Zarkon hadn’t been after the daughter of his closest friend and greatest enemy, nor the mysterious alien knife carried by one who was beginning to doubt who he was and where he was from.

This whole time, Zarkon had been hunting the Black Lion.  And he’d nearly taken her.  But Keith’s connection to Red was stronger than any that had ever existed before, and she had come to them.  Voltron had formed, and they had all escaped once again. 

Keith wished it had been him.  He wished that Zarkon had come like in his dream, had come for Keith sensing his knife, his blood, whatever made him so different.  He wished anything except this: watching the look on Shiro’s face as his brother understood that it was him.  That he, his Lion, was what was drawing Zarkon to them, what had always been doing so.  The horror as he realized he had been putting them all in such danger, never mind that he hadn’t meant to, hadn’t known. 

Keith would have traded anything in the world, would have wished on every star in the universe, for it to have been him and not Shiro.  But he had no power over this.  His alien knife granted him no abilities, no knowledge.  Black was the lure, and Shiro had to deal with that. 

He wouldn’t be alone.  That was the one thing they could give each other.  None of them would ever be alone.  Zarkon had an empire, but in the end he had no one truly with him.  He would lose, and Voltron would win.  A lone leopard could not have victory over a Pride of Lions.  The universe wouldn’t allow it.  There was much still to do, but for now the Paladins would just have to rely on one another.  They didn’t have much choice. 

* * *

Pidge couldn’t help herself.  All she could do was stare, eyes wide and entire body frozen. 

“Uh, Pidge?  You okay?”

Lance sounded a little concerned.  But it was a distant voice, unimportant in this moment.  Because here in front of her was all the proof she’d ever needed. 

Pidge had been right all along. 

Sure, she was right about lots of stuff.  But she’d called it!  She’d known aliens were real, and she’d known they’d visited Earth! 

Not Galra, of course.  Never Galra, or the planet wouldn’t still be standing.  Of that, she was certain.  But other aliens!   Little gray aliens with long thin limbs and smooth oval skulls, and big dark eyes like empty galaxies. 

Roswell.  Area 51.  Aurora, Texas.  The Lubbock Lights.  Rendelsham Forest.  Sverdlovsk.  Broad Haven.  They were real. 

Sure, Pidge was now a pilot for a giant magical robot lion spaceship and met aliens of every shape and size daily.  Heck, she lived with two of them!  (Seven, if you count the mice, and fourteen if you include all of Pidge’s nebula friends.)  Anyway, it was a lot of aliens.  Beside her drifted a little robot that could not have been made with Human technology.  It was one of her best friends, although for perhaps the first time in her life, she had living ones too.  Normal had gotten pretty stretched over the last few months. 

_(What even is Pidge’s life now.)_

But this – this was different.  This was what Katie had grown up dreaming about.  Stories from her father, her brother.  Books upon books, and websites – every corner of the internet she could hunt through.  Staring through a telescope hours past her bedtime, waiting for a shadow to cross the moon (a shadow that wasn’t a shuttle or space station or colony pod.  Something different.  Something more). 

The drawings had gotten a lot of things wrong, but the bored shopkeeper, surrounded by Earthling nonsense that was weirdly exotic this far out, was without a doubt everything she had ever looked for. 

“Pidge, seriously.  The thousand-yard-stare is really starting to freak me out, and also I want to go in here so bad because if they don’t have Earth chocolate I might die.”

She blinked.  Oh yeah.  She and Lance were in a mall (a _space mall_ ), and she had been staring at this window for who knows how long while Lance shifted and shuffled antsily next to her. 

“Yeah.  Sorry.  Let’s go in.  This is just…” she trailed off.  She couldn’t put this into words.  After everything, this little Earth-trinkets shop run by a scrawny dude with gray skin wearing a ringleader coat, parachute pants, and heeled boots – _along with a literal Area 51 baseball cap holy crow_ – was what rendered her stunned and speechless. 

Lance looked kind of amused; he was definitely thinking the same thing.  But there was also something soft in his eyes that she didn’t examine too closely as they entered the shop.  It smelled like dust and ozone and salt.  “You’ve always liked space, huh.”

“Yeah.” She couldn’t say more.  The words were trapped in her throat.  She loved space, loved it more than people or nature or even technology, until the sky betrayed her and stole two-thirds of her family.  Even then, though.  Even then, it had been something. 

Lance poked a bobbly Hawaiian dancer doll.  “This is so weird.”

She laughed.  Their lives were wild chaos with days spent fighting an evil galactic empire using a giant fusion robot and nights spent searching for ways to find their missing, to win.  And a shop that sold random Earth junk was what was weird. 

Oh.  No, wait.  Not all of this was junk.  Because sitting on a shelf right there at eye level, shiny and undamaged in its unopened box, was Mercury Gameflux II. 

The best game in the universe.  It was right here, just waiting for her to discover it all the way across the galaxies. 

And they couldn’t afford it. 

It was just a dumb game, it didn’t mean anything.  But for some reason Pidge’s heart had attached itself in an instant to this dumb game.  Maybe it was the familiarity, memories of hours spent with Matt, taking turns or playing co-op.  Maybe she was just desperate for something normal in their new impossible space lives.  Or maybe it really was just that good of a game. 

Lance must have seen something in her eyes, because his face softened.  A moment later, he brightened, eyes flashing.  “Hey,” he said, ignoring the shopkeeper (alien!) who was watching them, “I think I saw coins in that fountain we passed earlier.  Maybe that will be enough!”

It was ridiculous.  They were here with a job, and there were no teludav lenses in this shop.  They were grown-ass teenagers who shouldn’t just go clambering around into every public fountain they saw to fish for pennies. 

So what.  Pidge would rob that fountain for all it was worth if it got her Mercury Gameflux II.  Time to go fishing. 

* * *

The space mall had hundreds of people, a vast center of information.  It would be nearly impossible to find a chance like this again, especially with their current lifestyle of run-and-hide-and-fight.  This was his chance. 

Keith tightened his hand around the sheath of his knife, feeling the wrapping that covered the glowing runelike symbol press against his skin.  He needed answers.  Somewhere here in all this bustle and rush of people, he would find them.  He needed to find something.  This would drive him mad otherwise. 

He supposed he should be glad they’d all been so busy the last few days.  Keith was terrible at keeping secrets – at least his own – and Pidge and Shiro at least would have certainly noticed something was off if they’d had time to pay attention to Keith’s weird behavior.  But it had been one life-threatening situation after the other lately, and nobody had caught on to the fact that Keith was probably acting more than a little off.  The knife felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, dragging its mysteries along behind Keith everywhere he went.  He needed to know.  He wasn’t Pidge – he couldn’t just hold this.  It would break him sooner or later. 

Maybe this knife-vendor alien had some answers.  He was selling weird blades like an awkward infomercial, but Keith caught his attention and he dropped the routine to look at Keith with narrowed eyes. 

“How much?” he asked, waving his product.  The knife he held didn’t actually look to be of terribly great quality, despite all the grand claims.  Keith had two much better ones, thanks. 

“I just have a question.”  He hoped he wouldn’t regret this.  “Have you ever seen something like this?”  Keith held out his knife, leaving the wrappings on.  He didn’t need to tell this alien _everything._  

At first the guy looked disinterested, like people came by every hour to question him about knives.  But then he took in what he was looking at, focusing on Keith’s blade.  His eyes sharpened, suddenly far more intense than they’d been as he boredly waved around his crummy product. 

“What is this?  The craftsmanship – it’s incredible!  It’s, what, luxite?  Of course it is, with that shade.  And look at that gleam, like a distant supernova.  Luxite, and high-quality at that.”  The vendor stared at Keith’s knife with a mixed expression: amazement, admiration, more.  “The planet they mine luxite from hasn’t existed in decaphoebs.  All that beautiful ore, all gone.  Very few blades left, especially nice ones like this.”

None of that meant anything to Keith.  Luxite was just a word.  He hadn’t even known of sentient occupants of other planets until meeting the Alteans and Arusians, and those first fights with the Galra.  But this was more than he’d had a moment ago.  The blade would be all the easier to track if luxite was rare. 

There was greed in the vendor’s eyes too.  Rare meant valuable.  High-quality rare meant even moreso. 

And now that he thought it through a bit more, maybe Keith shouldn’t have asked a random knife vendor in a mall about his apparently extremely valuable blade.  _No risk, no reward, I guess.  But this might be a pretty big risk._  

“Where did you get this?” The alien asked, all his eyes narrowing.  “How did you come across such a quality piece?  Who even are you?”

_Dad said it was Mom’s.  He said it would always protect me.  It was all I have of her, and now all I have of him._

_It matches the weapon of a Galra rebel leader who saved my brother’s life and set him free.  Their organization has them, and the symbol is the same even though I can’t read it._

_I’m beginning to doubt who I am._

Those words would never be spoken, not to this stranger.  “Someone gave it to me,” he said flatly.  His spine was beginning to tingle, his hands itching without the knife’s familiar weight.  He wanted it back, out of the alien’s hands. 

The alien _hmph_ ed.  “Well that’s vague.  Look, kid.  I’ll give you a thousand GAC to take this off your hands.  You wouldn’t know what to do with it if you tried.”

 _You have no idea what I can do with it._   “It’s not for sale,” Keith growled.  He _really_ wanted his knife back. 

“Two thousand.” The alien’s eyes were hard. 

Keith’s were harder.  “No.  Thanks.  Give it back now.”

His face split into an unkind grin, reminding Keith of an eel showing its teeth.  “How about this, then?  I keep this little thing, and you scram before I call security on you.  I know it’s stolen.”

 _It’s not.  It belongs to me.  It’s mine, and you’re not taking it._   “It’s not stolen,” he gritted out. 

“Then tell me where you got it.”

_No._

Fast as lightning, Keith’s hand snapped out and snatched the blade back from the vendor’s hand.  The alien shouted in surprise and then anger, but Keith was already gone, running as fast as he could to anywhere that wasn’t there. 

Luxite.  The blade was made of luxite. 

That didn’t answer anything.  Keith was still in the dark about _what_ luxite was, where it came from, how he’d ended up with it.  All he had was more questions. 

But he could ponder those when he wasn’t at imminent risk of being caught.  Keith wove his way through the mall crowds until he found a bathroom, and ducked in to wait for a while.  He hadn’t taken or damaged anything, so the vendor didn’t have much ground to stand on if he’d even bothered to call for whatever passed as security at this mall. 

The knife was heavy at his side.  It weighed him down like an iron sword, secrets and mysteries adding pounds upon pounds to its small size.  He couldn’t just ask strangers about it.  That hadn’t gone well, and very easily could have gone much worse. 

But where could he go?  Who in the universe could possibly answer his questions? 

 _Pidge would know,_ a corner of his mind whispered.  _She can find anything.  She’s good at secrets and unanswerable questions.  Pidge would know where to look._

 _But you can’t tell her._   Keith knew the knife was his mother’s – or at least he thought it had been – but not much else.  It looked just like Ulaz’s, like a Marmorite’s weapon.  He didn’t know what to make of that.  He didn’t know what to make of any of this, now.  It made him feel lonely. 

Maybe… maybe he should try.  Talk to Pidge, or Shiro.  Coran might know something too, he seemed to know everything.  Whatever this knife and its history and secrets were, Keith himself was a part of Voltron, here and now.  He was terrified of losing that, but he didn’t know how much longer he could hold on to this.  Trust was hard to do, but maybe it would be worth it. 

He left the bathroom with a new resolve.  And then Hunk ran straight into him and then they were being chased by security, for real this time. 

(The security was honestly pretty weak, but hey.  They’d taken enough risks for today.  It was time to leave anyway.)

* * *

Today was apparently Pidge’s lucky day, because for once Lance’s dumb idea worked.  The little mall fountain had a frankly unbelievable amount of money in it, and they returned to the Earth shop with enough to buy the game.  Lance let Pidge make the transaction, nearly blinded by the stars in her eyes. 

Also.  Turns out livestock abductions were real.  Anyway, they had a cow now. 

They made it three steps out of the Earth shop before everything went haywire.  Keith and Hunk came barreling out of nowhere, yelling about needing to go _right now_ , and there was a… mall cop?  A round little Galra on a hover-scooter chasing (slowly) after them, and yeah, it was definitely time to go.  Pidge clutched the Mercury Gameflux II box closer to her chest and ran after them. 

Sure, if they got caught it wouldn’t be good.  Even this half-hearted little mall cop could potentially cause trouble if he somehow got hold of four Paladins of Voltron.  But after so long being in near-constant life-threatening danger, going from one fight to the next without pause, this was… nice, somehow.  Even as they ran through the mall, leaving chaos behind them, the escape was more fun than frightening.  There wasn’t really much danger here.  It was exhilarating in a different way, more like fighting the training gladiator than anything else. 

It felt like they were kids again. 

Kids who were running straight at a balcony edge with not much to stop them.  Pidge had a flash of memory, an overburdened hoverbike and lots of shrieking, Garrison vehicles left in the dust behind them.  Then Lance pulled her up onto Kaltenecker’s (the cow – weird name, but Pidge wasn’t one to question these things) floating platform. 

She reached out her other hand and Keith took it without hesitation.  Hunk scrambled on at some point after that, Rover zooming after the whole mess, and they flew away, leaving the mall cop and his dinky scooter in the dust. 

“Did you buy a _cow?!”_

“It was free with purchase!”

* * *

He’d wanted to tell them. 

Back at the mall, Keith had convinced himself that he would talk to Pidge, or Shiro, or _someone_ about everything.  The knife, the mysteries, his mother, himself, Marmora. 

But the pod was cramped and small, especially with a cow jammed in there with them (seriously – a cow?  Where in stars had Pidge and Lance gotten this thing?).  There was no privacy here, and he didn’t want everyone to know yet. 

Sure, he could just wait until they got back to the castle.  Wait for a quiet moment when he could pull Pidge aside and bring up secrets, when he could ask Shiro to walk with him and talk about his mother. 

He couldn’t.  Not now.  This would have to wait, the secrets would have to drag along for just a while longer.  Because Pidge was bright and happy and excited, clutching the box of some game she’d found like it was made of gold.  She’d found something that lit her up from inside like when she solved a puzzle, and it flooded out everything else.  There was no exhaustion, no anxiety or fury or fear that she’d carried for so long.  She listened to Hunk’s story of food and restaurants, laughing at the recounted adventures enough that her cheeks squished, pushing her glasses up in front of her closed eyes. 

She looked young.  She looked her age, the age of them all, instead of a brilliant warrior Paladin.  She was happy. 

And he couldn’t say anything.  Keith couldn’t break this, not for as long as the moment could draw itself out to last.  He couldn’t bring up knives and aliens and mysteries without answer, drag her back into what their lives were now. 

He wouldn’t tell her.  Not now.  Not when this was the first time he’d seen Katie in so long. 

The secrets could wait a little longer. 

*

The secrets would have to wait a little longer.  Shiro had strengthened his bond with the Black Lion and driven Zarkon back, although the fight in the astral plane sounded kind of really terrifying.  Coran had found teludav lenses and repaired the machinery with Hunk and Pidge’s help. 

With no Empire tracking them and the castle’s wormhole functional again, there was nothing to stop them from going to meet the most powerful resource they might ever find. 

They could forge an alliance.  Shiro might finally get some answers.  Keith might, too. 

They were going to the Blade of Marmora. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LOVE SPACE MALL


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the birds are shining, the sun is singing, and i am somehow still alive! college got super intense and i basically had to stop doing anything that wasn’t homework and sleeping and stressing, so uh… sorry for the two-month unintended hiatus. but i’m back! i am now a real live official university graduate with the dumb hat and the bit of paper to prove it! then a bit of vacation and a ton of sleeping (and a convention??? still not sure how i fit that in there, complete with a whole new costume and everything), and i am back and ready to write literally everything. seriously, it was driving me crazy to have no time for writing or art or _anything_ for like three months straight. but that’s all done, and while i look for jobs i’ve got a liiiittle more time than i did previously, and hope to spend lots of it writing!
> 
> and now, with all that said, here is one of the longest chapters i’ve ever written for this fic! welcome to the Blade of Marmora~

This was it.  The Blade of Marmora.  The rebel headquarters had finally been found to float balanced precariously between two black holes and a giant blue star, a galactic Scylla-and-Charybdis that threatened any who even considered entering the base. 

That wouldn’t stop Keith.  Nothing would, not now.  He’d stared at the star-and-voids through the viewscreens without really seeing them.  All he knew was that everything he wanted was somewhere in there, and he was finally going to get his answers at long last. 

Allura and Hunk had hesitated, wary of the dangers of venturing into such a risky place to meet with people who could become allies but could just as easily be enemies.  Okay, maybe Keith shouldn’t have yelled at them quite as much as he did, but in his defense he’d been under a lot of emotional strain lately.  He’d been about ready to just take Red and fly in on his own, risks and consequences be damned, when Shiro finally intervened.  Two were permitted, so Shiro would go as the Head of Voltron and Keith would follow, Right Arm second-in-command and piloting the only Lion that could make it through the cosmic storm to the Marmora base. 

The Left Arm of Voltron was strangely silent during the whole negotiation and preparation.  Keith could _feel_ those sharp gold eyes on him, but every time he looked at her Pidge was staring at her screens, hands flickering across holographic keyboards and wholeheartedly ignoring the debate on safety, trust, danger, and alliance.  But the moment he turned his back the feeling returned, weighing like something physical, close and considering – an uncomfortable feeling, like being an insect pinned under a microscope. 

He didn’t want to answer her questions.  He didn’t have answers to his own, he certainly didn’t have any for hers.  So he stayed away, stalking in Shiro’s shadow like a caged tiger or bickering half-heartedly with Lance, until the time was right and they could finally go. 

The Red Lion’s cockpit was quiet, only the hum of the ship’s machinery and a low beeping from some scanner or other (look, Keith was a good pilot, but this was an alien spaceship and basically flew itself for the most part, at least managing its own mechanics well enough that he never really had to try and decipher them). 

Shiro broke the quiet.  “Are you okay?”

Keith should have expected something, after his little outburst at Hunk and the Princess earlier.  He’s just lucky it didn’t come earlier – he’s been acting suspicious for days, carrying secrets as big as Pidge’s but without her practiced subtlety.  Everyone’s been busy and so he probably got under the radar, but he should have known that he wouldn’t escape his brother’s notice forever. 

“I’m fine.  Just… tense.  Sorry.  This could be big, if we can get a real alliance with the Blade.”  _And if they can tell me about my knife._  

Shiro nodded.  “I understand.  Everyone’s feeling the pressure.  But you’re going to have to learn to control your emotions better, if you’re going to lead the others.”

Keith stiffened.  “Don’t say that.”

“We talked about this before–”

“You were delirious!  I thought you were dying!”

Shiro sighed.  “I’m alright, and that’s still the plan.  If anything happens to me, you will be the leader of Voltron.”

 _“Why?”_  

“Because I know what you’re capable of.  If you can just focus, you’ll be a great leader.”

Keith’s hands were bone-white on Red’s controls.  “Why are we even talking about this?” he hissed.  “Nothing’s gonna happen to you.  You’re fine, and you’re going to stay fine.”

Shiro didn’t say anything.  Maybe he’d learned that his promises didn’t have a great track record.  But his hand was warm on Keith’s shoulder, and that would have to be enough for now. 

“Sorry,” Keith finally muttered as they began the arc past one of the black holes.  “I didn’t mean to yell earlier, or now.  I’ve just… I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

Shiro nodded.  “I’ve noticed.  But this will be good.  According to Ulaz’s information, the Blade is one of the most powerful resistances against Zarkon.  If we can ally with them, everything could change.  This could be what we really need.”

He was right.  This meeting could change everything, could fill in for what was missing.  Both for Voltron, and for Keith. 

* * *

Of course, nothing could ever be easy for them.  The whole thing went sour from the start, even as a giant glowing purple hologram of the Marmora symbol, the symbol borne on Keith’s knife and burned into his brain, hung over them like a blessing – or maybe, upon reflection, more like Damocles. 

The entire meeting was a mess.  The Marmorite leader, a towering Galra with white hair worn in a long thin braid, was disapproving from the moment the two Humans entered the hall.  Then Shiro got defensive about Ulaz, and then they found out about the knife. 

“You stole this.”  It wasn’t even said as an accusation or question – Kolivan stated the words in a flat tone as if it was the truth. 

“I didn’t,” Keith hissed, trying to keep the anger from his voice and likely failing.  “I’ve had it all my life!”

The Blade member pinning him down, a monstrous beast of a Galra named Antic or Atalk or something, Keith hadn’t exactly been memorizing names and faces on their way down there, pushed him harder into the floor.  “This blade is stolen,” he said, voice faded with static through his mask.  “You are lying.  You have taken it from someone.”

“I didn’t!” he cried again.  He wanted desperately to wriggle and writhe, to fight back against the clawed weight of Antok’s giant hand pressing him into the floor, but he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere.  Even if he escaped the grasp of the eight- or nine-foot-tall Galra – seriously, even Zarkon seemed dwarfed by this giant – the hall was filled with other Blades who surely were only waiting for their moment. 

Kolivan seemed almost bored, but his eyes were sharp as he turned from the pinned Keith to Shiro, who was still standing frozen.  “Can you corroborate this claim?  Is this blade truly his?”

 _Oh no._   Before Kerberos, maybe, Shiro could have backed him up.  Keith didn’t show the knife to many people and talked about it even less, but Shiro had been one of them, to see it and maybe once or twice hear Keith mention that it had been his mother’s.  He’d seen the blade countless times, looped to Keith’s belt or tucked in a pack pocket or left out on the table if Keith was sure nobody else was going to come by.  But now… Shiro’s memory of before was a lacework, and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in the Red Lion’s heat ray that he would have retained clear memories of such a detail. 

Keith hated being right.  Shiro was pale and wide-eyed, but there was undeniable hesitance as he spoke, slow and uncertain.  “I… I don’t know.  I’m… not sure.”

Dammit.  “Shiro,” Keith urged, hoping to jog a scrap of recollection, “you know me, you know this knife.  I didn’t steal it, I swear.  I’ve had it all my life.  It was–” no, he wasn’t saying that in front of a group of strangers, especially ones that currently seemed to mean harm, “it’s mine.  I swear it is.”

But this was a group of spies.  They would never believe just words.  Especially when Keith couldn’t explain why he, a Human from a planet that had never had contact with the greater universe, had one of their secretive symbolic blades. 

It was hopeless, that was clear from the look on Kolivan’s face.  Keith wasn’t even sure they would make it out of here alive, but he couldn’t stop the words from spilling out anyway.  “I don’t know why I have it, or how I got it.  But I’ve had it all my life.  I never saw anything like it until we met Ulaz.  He said it was a symbol of the Blade of Marmora resistance.  I want to know what it means.”

Every Galra in the hall looked seconds from attacking.  Into the ringing, strained silence, Shiro spoke.  “We came here to form an alliance, but we’re clearly not welcome.  This is over.  We’re leaving.”

“I’m not.”  Voltron needed Marmora, but Keith needed answers.  He couldn’t leave.  The symbol hung over them like a neon sign.  Everything was right here, and he couldn’t get it.  “Not without some answers.  I have to know.”

Shiro stared at him.  He was pale, his scar standing out like mismatched paint.  “Keith, we need to go.  We should get back to the castle as soon as possible.  We can talk there–”

“No,” Keith repeated.  “I can’t leave.  I need to know.”

“Very well,” said Kolivan, startling them both.  At some unspoken signal, Antok stepped back, releasing Keith to let the Red Paladin clamber back to his feet.  “You wish to attain knowledge?  There is a way.”

“What is it?” Keith said, completely failing to hide the intensity and eagerness in his voice. 

At the same time, Antok protested, exclaiming, “Leader!  He cannot–”

Kolivan cut him off.  “The Trials of Marmora.  Should you survive, you may keep the blade and its secrets will be revealed.  You may try to find what you seek, but you will risk everything.”

 _It would be worth it._   “I’ll do it,” Keith said. 

Shiro did not seem nearly as accepting.  _“Survive?!”_ he sputtered.  “Keith, this is crazy.  It’s just a knife.  There’s nothing here for us, we should get out of here and get back to the castle.”

Keith felt a burst of frustration.  Shiro of all people should understand.  He’d lost so much, almost all of his memory gone and the remains in tatters.  If he could get it back, if he could _know_ –

But Shiro wasn’t Keith.  Their circumstances were different.  And Keith knew what he needed to do.  “I’m not going, Shiro.  I have to do this.”

Antok grudgingly returned Keith’s knife, somehow managing to communicate a glare through his full mask.  Keith felt stronger and more confident the moment the blade settled back into his palm, familiar as his own heartbeat.  He could do this. 

“The Trials result in one of two things,” Kolivan said, as if reciting from a text passage, “knowledge, or death.”

Well then.  This was going to be interesting.  But Keith felt the weight of the knife in his hand, feeling far heavier than its material mass, and he knew that he had to do this anyway. 

 _Let the trials begin._  

* * *

* * *

 Pidge couldn’t focus.  A myriad of holoscreens sprawled in front of her, each and every one demanding attention, but she could barely keep her eyes on them for a few minutes before her focus was dragged back to the bridge’s massive viewscreens and the roiling black-holes-and-blue-star that took up every bit of space before them. 

She had work to do, but all she could think about were Keith and Shiro, out there somewhere.  They were supposed to be meeting with the Blade of Marmora, working to form an alliance between the Galra rebel organization and Voltron, but anything could happen.  The Blade hadn’t seemed particularly receptive up until now, and if things went bad a rescue was going to be pretty difficult to pull off.  A little screen to the lower left was running routes that the Blue or Green Lion might be able to handle, just in case they needed to go in on short notice.  It wasn’t coming up with great results, but it was all she could do. 

There was too much interference, and virtually no signals could make it through the chaos.  No way for the castleship to know how things were going.  Shiro and Keith were radio silent, and Pidge was left to stew in her own badly-suppressed anxiety, trying and failing to focus on anything else as Rover hummed worriedly at her side and the cosmic storm raged silently outside. 

Pidge had never been good at waiting, but for now that was all she could do. 

* * *

* * *

“Surrender the blade, and the pain will end.”

 _All these Blades sound the same,_ Keith thought, still struggling even though he knew he was well and pinned.  His shoulder burned.  “I won’t quit,” he panted, feeling the press of the Blade’s weapon pressed, butterfly-light and razor-deadly, against his throat.  _Not when I’m this close.  I’ve been fighting all my life, what’s a little more, to finally get some answers?_  

“Then the pain continues.”

 _Doesn’t it always?_   But the soldier dropped his blade away from Keith, stepping back, and standing still. 

What kind of game was this?  Was he supposed to attack _them_ , now? 

The Galra pointed their swordtip at a door that had stood unnoticed behind them until now.  “You are not meant to go through that door,” they said in a monotone, still unmoving. 

It only took a few seconds for him to catch on, and if his smile was just a little bit feral, well, nobody else was here to see it besides the Blade.  _Always going where you’re not supposed to go, Kogane.  The Garrison, space, secret places everywhere across the universe.  A door deep in the base of the Blade of Marmora._

A door leads somewhere new.  And sometimes it’s the easiest thing to just open it, even if you don’t know what’s on the other side. 

* * *

He should give it up.  Every logical piece of his brain was telling him to stop, to quit before this killed him.  But Kolivan had said knowledge or death, and Keith had decided in that moment that he was going to get that knowledge, no matter the cost. 

So he shrugged off the exhaustion, the pain, the way his right arm felt like it was going to fall off at the next hit.  Just keep going.  No matter what. 

If the Blades had been actively trying to kill him, he would have died in the first fight.  Sure, maybe he was a pretty good fighter and had gotten even better as the Red Paladin, but there was no way a teenage Human could take on seven highly-trained Galra and win.  He’d been losing every fight, but each time they would stand aside and point at the next door, telling him that he was not meant to go through it and watching in silence as he staggered through anyway. 

This room was different, though.  This time, he’d thrown himself down one of the risers the Blades had emerged on, hoping that a change in action would get him out of the endless cycle of fighting more and more Galra. 

And maybe he’d gotten it right.  There were no Blades here, just an empty room with some blank screens on the walls.  Keith leaned against one, catching his breath and trying to ignore the searing burn in his shoulder.  Of everything, that first hit had been the hardest – too hard, maybe.  Something felt wrong in it, but he didn’t have time to focus on that.  _Keep going.  Take the next step.  You can’t fall if you’re still walking._  

The little rest-break had been nice, but Keith needed to keep moving and look for the next door – or not-door, since it turned out he really _hadn’t_ been supposed to go through those.  Whoops.  Pidge would have been proud of him, thinking outside the box, analyzing the situation and finding a way out against all odds.  He missed her.  He missed Shiro.  He wanted this to be over.  But Keith had rarely gotten what he wanted.  He couldn’t dwell on exhaustion, on pain, on longing.  It was time to go. 

Keith was about to push off of the wall, search for the next step, when the screen he’d been leaning on suddenly burst to light, static snow fizzing across it with a loud buzz.  Keith jumped so badly he nearly fell.  The snow continued, blurring in different patterns that swam across Keith’s already-blurry eyes, and then resolved into an out-of-focus but clear enough image of Pidge. 

_“Keith!”_

For a moment, he just stared, mouth open.  Then the situation finally caught up to him.  _Trust Pidge to figure out a way to hack into the Blade’s system across all their security and the literal storm of interference going on outside.  Only her._   “Man, am I glad to see you.”

Pidge’s little smile pushed her glasses to lopsided, and she fixed them with a hand that wasn’t still typing on something else. 

 _“Finally got in.  You would not believe the security in that place, and damn but black holes cause a lot of noise.  And then I had to find_ you _in that crazy ant’s nest!  But I did it.”_   She looked quite pleased with herself, cat who caught the technological mouse. 

“Of course you did it,” Keith laughed.  There was nothing in the universe that could stop either of them when they set their minds to something.  “But what are you doing here?  I’m… I have to complete the trials.”

_“Trials?  What about the alliance?”_

Keith thought about how displeased Kolivan had looked.  “We’re, uh… working on that.  But they have information I need, and these trials could give me answers.”

Pidge squinted at him.  The reflection of her glasses made her seem off, robotic.  Rover wasn’t with her.  _“Answers?  Answers to what, Keith?  I can find anything you want on the computers, I have full access.  They’re no match for me, for us.  Hurry up and come back, Keith.  Make the alliance and bring Shiro home, and we can find whatever it is you’re looking for from the castle.”_

He was so tired.  But he had to do this himself.  Kolivan had said to gain knowledge one had to undertake the Trials of Marmora.  This wasn’t something he could cheat. 

“I can’t, Pidge.  I have to stay.  I need to finish this.”

 _“Keith!  Just give up the blade, it’s just a knife!  You already have Red’s.  We’ll get the answers ourselves.  Give it up and come back to me, please.”_  

He’d never told her about the knife, about his suspicions (his fears).  Something was off.  Sure, Pidge was always prying and might have learned of it somehow.  And she was rarely interested in following official paths, preferring to find information herself, however she could, rather than obeying someone’s instructions.  But Keith wasn’t Pidge, and he needed to find his own answers. 

“Sorry.  I’m not leaving.  See you soon.”  And he turned and walked away, now ignoring pain in his chest as well as his shoulder.

_“Keith?  Keith!  Come back, please come back – I can’t lose you too!  Keith!”_

Keith bit his lip until he tasted blood, or at least more of it.  _I’ll be back soon.  Everything will be okay.  But I need to do this._  

He only barely made it through the door on the far end of the screen-room (yes, a door, but it was the only way out and he couldn’t listen to Pidge call him for any longer) before his vision blurred even worse, the room starting to wobble and weave.  Keith blinked, and then he was lying on the floor and someone was approaching him. 

 _Not again,_ he thought, but his vision cleared slightly and he could see that the person wasn’t wearing the glowing purple-black bodysuit of Marmora but armor, solid white-and-black.  There was only one person in the universe who wore that armor. 

Keith’s eyes finally focused on Shiro’s face as his brother leaned over him, smile doing little to conceal his worry.  “Hey, little bro.”  The smile became slightly more real as he saw Keith wake and notice him.  “Good job.  You did it.”

He’d done it.  If Shiro was here, then he must have completed the Trials.  Maybe the test had been figuring out how to get out of the endless cycle of fighting, and Pidge’s little interlude had just been timed particularly strangely. 

It was over.  It was finally over. 

Shiro’s eyes were soft and familiar.  He almost looked like he had before Kerberos.  “Kolivan told me you lasted longer than anyone ever has.  You can stop now, there’s no need to keep it up.”

Wait.  “What?” Keith asked, ignoring how his voice trembled.  “What are you talking about?”  _Was it not over?  Was there more to the Trials?_  

His brother looked calm, confident.  So easy to trust.  “Just give them the knife, Keith.  Then we can get out of here and back to the castle.”

 _Oh._ “I can’t give it to them,” Keith said slowly.  Giving it up would mean the end of everything.  it would all be for nothing, and he would be left with less than the scraps he’d started with. 

It was the wrong thing to say.  Shiro frowned, his eyes turning hard.  “What is it with you and that thing?” he asked, voice turned sharp and mean.  “Why are you doing this?  How could an old knife be such a big deal for you?”

“It’s the only connection I have to my past,” Keith gritted out.  “This – the Blade, the Trials – this is my chance to learn who I am.” 

Before Shiro lost his entire memory, maybe that would have worked.  But they hadn’t talked in detail about what he remembered anymore, so he couldn’t possibly understand why this was so important to Keith.  The Black Paladin was almost growling when he spoke.  “You know who you are, Keith.  You’re a Paladin of Voltron.  You’re a part of us.  We’re all the family you need.”

Maybe that was true.  But Keith had a chance to learn who he’d _been_ , who his mother had been, how his father had gotten an alien knife and why he’d given it to his son, all the pieces that were long-gone and impossible to learn on Earth. 

But that didn’t mean it was hard to turn against Shiro like this.  He’d been Keith’s mentor for so many years, and his brother for only slightly fewer.  He’d helped Keith stay in the Garrison and succeed, helped him make something of his life.  Even when he’d disappeared (not died, he was still alive despite everything so _fuck you_ , Galaxy Garrison), it was Keith’s love of his brother that had driven him to find answers, and had brought him to Katie Holt, who’d been doing exactly the same.  Even after losing his place in the Garrison, he hadn’t lost her. 

Even after going to space (the start of which was driven by Shiro’s unexpected return), his brother had become the leader, the Head of Voltron.  It had always been natural to follow him, and all the moreso now that Keith was his Right Arm.  Shiro had always led, on Earth and in space, and Keith had always remained comfortable following in his shadow. 

All that only made it harder to do what he needed to do.  “Shiro, you know I love you.  You’re my brother.  I trust you.  But I need you to trust me.  I have to do this.”

Shiro’s eyes were bitter.  “No, you don’t.  End this, and we can go home.”

Keith took a deep breath.  “I can’t do that.”

“Just give up the knife!” Shiro snarled.  “You’re only thinking of yourself, as usual.”

That was a low blow.  Yeah, Keith used to only think of himself.  He hadn’t had anyone else to think of, because there was nobody else who cared.  But then there had been Shiro, and Katie, and then Lance and Hunk and Allura and Coran.  He didn’t do that anymore.  Maybe he still wasn’t good at people, but he wasn’t a lone wolf anymore.  He was a Lion, and he had a pride. 

But this, he had to do.  For himself, maybe, yes, but also for his parents.  For his father, gone too early and carrying too many secrets, and for his mother, whoever she’d been.  For who Keith might have been, had he not lost them both.  “I’ve made my choice,” he said quietly, fingers locked around the little knife’s blade like they’d turned to stone. 

His brother’s face turned blank.  “Then you’ve chosen to be alone.”  Then the Black Paladin turned and walked away. 

Keith wanted answers, more than almost anything.  But he didn’t want to be alone.  Never again.  Shiro had promised once, long ago when Keith was slightly smaller and far angrier, that he would never have to be alone again. 

Knowledge or death, Kolivan had said.  And Keith had accepted that.  But loneliness – the empty feeling like being lost in a desert with no markers to guide you home – that was far worse.  “Shiro!” Keith called.  He stumbled forward a step, then another, running after the fading shadow of his brother.  “Shiro, wait!”

Then everything faded to sunburst-white, and was gone. 

* * *

The light finally faded, leaving Keith to blink away ghosts as his vision adjusted to the sudden dimness.  Familiar dimness – this was the shack. 

It felt like a lifetime since he’d last been here.  All the curtains were drawn like it was high day outside, although the little room was merely warm instead of the sweltering temperature he’d endured every afternoon, barely mediated by a wobbly fan and tepid water. 

Before he could get lost in thought, though, there was a terrific crash from somewhere outside.  It shook the little shack’s very floorboards, making Keith jump like a startled cat.  _What in stars was that?_  

He was reaching for the door, to go outside and investigate the sound – the potential threat – when he heard the voice. 

 _“Keith.”_  

He whirled.  That voice – the voice he’d been sure he would never hear again –

His father was standing there, just on the other side of the room.  Like nothing in the last so-many-years had ever happened, like he’d never –

Just.  There. 

“Dad?”  His voice wobbled, sounding more like the child he’d been the last time he saw his father than the teenager he was now. 

His dad smiled.  “You’re home, Keith.”

 _I’m home._  

His already-disjointed train of thought was interrupted by another boom from outside.  Was this one closer?  The windows were shaking.  “Dad–” He couldn’t think.  Something was happening outside.  His father was home.  _Keith_ was home, for what felt like the first time in years.  “What’s happening?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Dad said easily.  “We’ll be safe as long as we stay in here.  “Don’t you want to catch up, Keith?”

Catch up.  Catch up for the years since he’d last seen his father in anything but pictures?  How could Keith tell him what had happened?  All those years alone, getting into the Garrison, Shiro, Kerberos, Katie, space –

Being a Paladin. 

Another crash sounded outside.  It sounded like the end of the world. 

“It’s been so long,” the older Human continued, tone reminiscent without a trace of worry for whatever was happening outside.  “So many years.  I have so much to tell you, son.”

“Dad,” Keith tried again, throat feeling tight and strained.  “Of course I – of course I want to stay.  There’s so much I want to talk to you about.  But I need to see–”

“Your mother will be here soon,” his father interrupted.  “Don’t you want to see her?  You just have to wait a few more minutes. 

 _A few more minutes_.  What was a few minutes, after so many years? 

But he’d been a fighter for long enough to know that a few minutes – a few seconds – could mean everything, if the sounds were from a fight.  “I’m not – I need–”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you.” His father sounded sad now.  He didn’t want his dad to be sad.  “But your mother will be here soon, and then we can talk.  I can explain everything.  She’ll be able to tell you everything.”

Another sound, this one so loud Keith could feel it in his chest.  “What _is_ that?” he cried, running to the window. 

“Everything’s fine,” murmured his father. 

Once, Keith would have believed him.  He would have trusted, and turned away from the window and the sounds. 

But a lot had changed.  Keith opened the curtain. 

The world was ending.  Galra destroyers lined the sky, blasting the planet to rubble beneath them.  The Red Lion’s metal shone through the dust clouds like a beacon, but she stood still as a statue, like she was a lifeless empty ship and not a piece of living magical technology.  There were distant screams, growing louder as Earth was destroyed. 

 _No._  

“I have to go.”  The words burst from him, almost heedless.  He was already turning toward the door, reaching for his bayard, his connection to Red, when his father spoke again. 

“Don’t you want to know about where you came from?”

Unbidden, Keith’s body turned back.  His father was holding the knife, the one that bore the symbol of Marmora, a symbol that should be foreign to Earth, on its hilt.  “Your mother gave it to me, you know,” he said, gazing at it as he turned the blade, catching the faint light of the burning world outside. 

Keith knew, on some level, that it had belonged to his mom.  What he didn’t know was why she’d had it, why she’d given it to him, how and why she’d disappeared – essentially, everything but that. 

But the screams were growing louder, the time between the blasts growing shorter and shorter as the Empire focused its attack.  “People need me,” he whispered, but his feet refused to move.  _Voltron needs me.  They can’t form without Red._

 _But this might be my only chance._   “She’ll be here soon,” Keith’s father said.  He still hadn’t looked out the window, hadn’t acknowledged what was going on outside.  He was fixed on the knife and on Keith, like a dream where only some things were important and it didn’t matter if other things didn’t make sense. 

“Dad,” Keith pleaded, “tell me.  Please.  I need to know.  Where did that knife come from?  What does it mean?  Why did Mom have it?  What does it mean?”

It was like he didn’t hear him.  Keith’s father gazed at the knife with a distant fondness.  “Your mother is almost here,” he murmured.  Then he looked up, meeting Keith’s eyes with a calmness that dissonated with the frantic pounding of Keith’s heart.  “She’ll tell you everything.”

Light flashed outside, illuminating the shack.  The world was running out of time. 

Like moving through cement, Keith turned away.  “I have to go,” he said, almost to himself.  “I can’t wait anymore.  They need me.”

As he closed his hand around the doorknob, the metal somehow ice-cold despite the desert heat and laserfire, Keith’s father spoke once more.  “If you go through that door, you’ll never find out who you are.”

Doors felt important today.  He could stay here, could wait for his mother and see her for the first time since he’d been a baby.  She could tell him about the knife, about herself and his father, about who Keith was himself. 

Or he could leave.  Voltron had to be out there somewhere, fighting the invasion, doing their best despite only having the individual Lions.  Pidge would have a plan, surely – at least one, probably twelve – she’d get them through this with sheer determination, Katie Holt had never lost after all.  Lance’s focus would be unbelievable.  This was Earth, his home, with his family and his beach and everything he talked about so often.  His whole life was here.  Hunk would never be able to leave the world to fend for itself: his protector heart had room for all of Earth, and there would still be enough left for most of the universe too.  And Shiro was out there too, somewhere.  Fighting for Earth even though it had tossed him to the side, blamed and abandoned and forgotten. 

Everything, everything balanced on a blade’s edge.  His father stood behind him, holding everything he wanted to know.  But beyond the door in front of him waited the Red Lion, the world, the universe, everything he’d grown to care for and wanted to protect. 

He made his choice.  “Goodbye, Dad.”  _I have to do this.  I’m sorry.  I hope you’re proud of me._  

Then he turned the doorknob and left the shack and his father and his knife behind. 

* * *

Keith was so tired.  Everything hurt, especially his shoulder.  He was kind of surprised his arm hadn’t just given up and fallen off already.  Everyone was yelling at each other, Blades bristling and aggressive as Shiro held Keith up with one hand and gave every glare and sharp word back as good as he got. 

Kolivan’s voice, deep and commanding, cut through the blur of exhaustion.  “You may leave if you wish, and take your beast with you.  But you will not take the blade with you.  You have failed to awaken it, and it does not belong to you.”

“What does that even _mean?”_ Keith growled.  On Earth, blades didn’t wake or sleep or anything else.  Kolivan had failed to explain what sort of ‘awakening’ the thing was supposed to undergo, although since it clearly hadn’t done so, it didn’t really matter. 

“It’s his,” Shiro said back, matching Kolivan ounce for ounce.  “The knife belongs to Keith.  We’re leaving, and it’s coming with us.”

How could Keith ever have believed the hologram, or simulation, or whatever that had been?  Shiro would never turn on him like that.  Memories gone, all he had to rely on was Keith’s word – and that was enough.  He was warm and stable at Keith’s side, helping the wounded Red Paladin stay standing, and he would never leave him. 

The fights had been real – that much was clear from the cuts and bruises that littered Keith’s body.  But the rest had been false, simulated circumstances designed to coax him into giving up with alternative means.  Pidge, despite her brilliance, could never have gotten through the interference of the black holes, and wouldn’t have been able to find him in all the base anyway.  And she of all people would never tell him to stop seeking knowledge, no matter the cost.  The real Pidge would have understood. 

And the last one… Keith’s father was dead.  His mother too, vanished when he was still so young.  The Galra remained far from Earth.  None of that had been real.  But, like a dream, it had _felt_ real. 

He hoped to have passed the tests, but somewhere along he must have failed because the knife remained unawoken (whatever that meant).  And now they were about to have a full-on fight on their hands. 

Antok charged – it had to be Antok, not even the other Galra matched his height, and few of them had tails – and Shiro met the attack, clashing his metal Empire-make arm against Antok’s massive Marmora sword. 

He couldn’t let them fight, couldn’t let Shiro sacrifice himself, risking injury or death, for this.  “Stop!” he cried, and the two warriors froze.  “Just take the knife!”  His arms were shaking, vision swimming, but in his uninjured hand he held out the blade that he’d had all his life, the blade that was causing such conflict now. 

Shiro looked concerned.  “Are you sure, Keith?” he asked in a low tone.  “It’s yours.  They have no right to take it.”

Keith shook his head.  “It doesn’t matter.  I know who I am, I don’t need to know where I came from.  It’s just a knife.  The universe is at stake, here.  We need to work together, _all_ of us, to defeat Zarkon and the Empire.  If that means that I have to give up this knife, fine.”  He held it out again, meeting Kolivan’s pale yellow eyes.  “Take it.”

Kolivan took one step towards him, reaching out a massive clawed purple hand to reclaim his organization’s blade, when it began to glow.  The entire hall stared in shock as the shine grew brighter and brighter, and when it faded Keith was holding not a knife, but a sword. 

A Marmora sword. 

“You’ve awoken the blade,” Antok murmured in awe.  Keith resisted the absurd urge to laugh.  Well.  At least he’d gained that knowledge now. 

Kolivan’s words cut short any amusement.  “The only ones who can awaken Marmora’s blades are those who carry her blood in their bodies and hearts.  This is only possible if Galra blood runs through your veins.”

Oh. 

* * *

The return of the Black and Red Paladins was met with the level of chaos that was standard for the Castle of Lions nowadays, which was to say absolute chaos.  Allura immediately wanted to begin discussion with Kolivan, and dragged Shiro and Coran with her.  Shiro was clearly reluctant to leave Keith, especially with how he had barely spoken since leaving the Marmorite base and the way he was clearly trying to hide the severity of his injuries from the others.  

But Pidge latched on to the two of them from the moment they’d exited the Red Lion   Keith was acting relatively normal, if somewhat withdrawn, but he didn’t fool her.  Something was up, and it was more than the obvious injuries that he was still trying to play off as not-that-bad-even-though-they-definitely-are.  With a bit of coaxing, Shiro left his little brother in her care and went off off, albeit reluctantly, to talk diplomacy and strategy with Allura and Kolivan. 

Pidge, for her part, immediately hauled Keith off to the medbay.  She blew off Lance’s questions with enough snappishness to ensure that he’d leave them alone for a while, without actively trying to hurt his feelings.  The much-nosier Hunk she distracted by offering to lend him Rover for a few vargas.  Keith was quiet and wobbly the whole walk to the medbay, and not even halfway through she ended up mostly supporting him, his less-injured arm around her shoulders and her hand wrapped tight around his waist. 

“What happened out there.”

It wasn’t a question.  Her hands were busy preparing medicine, pulling out salves and bandages, but she knew she wasn’t hiding her anxiety particularly well.  Keith knew her enough to spot the faint tremble in her fingers, the tightness around her eyes. 

But he’d scared her, and he deserved to feel bad about it. 

She answered the question before he asked it.  “It was too quiet for too long.  We got through enough to monitor some of Red’s signals, and then she went crazy.  She only does that when – when you’re–”

“When I’m about to die.”  He finished the sentence she couldn’t.  it had been terrifying, hoping for an alliance with the Blade and then, after a period of total silence, watching one of the Lions go ballistic.  It had been awful. 

“Yes!” Pidge cried.  She knew she was all bristly now like a little cat, but the whole thing had severely upset her and she didn’t really feel like hiding it.  “So tell me, Keith, what the _fuck_ happened on that base?  And why are you so beat up?  Seriously, I want to just stick you in a pod–”

“No, I’m not–”

“Of course you’re not, you’re not okay at all but you refuse the smart choice, as usual, so I’m going to have to patch you back up with the tatters of memory of that one Garrison first aid course everyone takes and no one remembers.  I know.”  She was still mad, but let the corners of her mouth twitch to show Keith that she accepted his decision. 

“Thanks,” he said quietly as she started the work.  Getting the shirt off had been a nightmare and Pidge had had to resort to cutting it with shears after Keith nearly blacked out trying to raise his arm.  The bruising was already impressive, and Pidge hoped the Altean bruise salve she’d found was as good as the rest of Altea’s work, otherwise he was going to be black-and-red-and-blue-and-purple-and-green for _weeks._  

“What else am I gonna do,” she grumbled, poking at an indigo spot on his ribs and snorting when he winced, “leave you here to do it yourself?  You know you’d be awful at it.”

“So are you,” he shot back.  But despite Pidge’s bedside manner being about as good as a hyena’s, he seemed to be relaxing.  After a few more minutes of companionable silence, he finally spoke, telling the story of everything had happened in the headquarters of the Blade of Marmora. 

“Holy shit.”  She’d stopped actively treating him around the time he described the fourth fight, Keith alone against seven Blade members.  But as if the fighting hadn’t been bad enough (he’d been fighting with that shoulder injury from the _first fight onward_ ), then there had been the simulations.  Pidge herself, Shiro, Keith’s family.  He didn’t go into much detail.  She didn’t ask. 

“I needed to know,” he said quietly into the silence after the story finished.  Pidge had gone back to work, and was now sitting on the table behind him, carefully bandaging the awful shoulder wound.  She was going to make him show it to Coran later – it was far worse than she was qualified to treat, and if it healed badly it could impede his fighting for the rest of his life.  “It was like – like with Shiro.  I couldn’t just leave the knowledge out there and not know.  I had to do it.”

Much as she wanted to yell at him about it (and his tone showed that he clearly expected her to), Pidge couldn’t blame him.  The Trials had hurt him deeply, physically and maybe mentally too, but she knew.  She understood that burning _need_ better than anyone. 

“I’m mad at you.”  Keith’s body tensed under her hands, and he carefully avoided looking at her.  “I’m mad, but I get it.  You scared the absolute bejeezus out of me, especially pulling that damn Lion trick, but I understand why.  I just wish I’d gone with you.  I don’t know what I could have done, but I would have… I would have been there.”

Keith shook his head.  “There was nothing you could have done,” he said gently.  “It could have been worse, with another person there.  I’m sure you would have punched Kolivan’s lights out and then we’d be out of the Alliance no matter how much diplomacy Allura pulled out of that cloud she calls hair.”

Pidge snorted.  “Yeah, I guess that’s true.  I just… I hated being stuck here, knowing you and Shiro were out there.  And when Red went haywire, I – I don’t know.  I wanted to fly Green out there and damn the radiation storms.”  Hunk was the protector of the team, but Pidge was a shield too, and she cared about Keith deeply, more than she ever had for someone who wasn’t in her immediate family.  But she couldn’t protect him, not from whatever he’d experienced in the Trials of Marmora and not from whatever was waiting for them in the future. 

“You would have done the same thing.”  Keith was staring at the wall, looking like he was thinking very hard.  “The Trials.  Kolivan said ‘knowledge or death.’  That applies to both of us, now that I think about it.”

 _Knowledge or death._   Fitting.  Pidge’s life certainly seemed to be following those extremes recently. 

Then he spoke again.  “I’m so tired of secrets.  I don’t know how you did it for so long.” 

“Secrets?” she asked carefully.  The need to know battled the need to let Keith keep his own thoughts to himself, but the internal fight was overridden when he continued. 

“The moment we met Ulaz and saw his sword, I recognized it.  Because I have one just like it.”

“You have a giant glowy purple sword?  I thought you were the _Red_ Paladin,” Pidge joked, but the smile fell from her face when he pulled out his old knife.  She’d seen it before, dozens of times.  It was just a part of Keith, like the red jacket and bad hair (not that she was anyone to speak – Pidge was basically the queen of birds’-nests).  But this time, he unwrapped the strips of old white canvas that had bound the hilt.  She’d never seen the weapon without them, now that she thought of it.  She’d never noticed. 

She sure as hell did now.  Because beneath the wrappings on Keith’s old knife, a knife from Earth that he’d had all his life _on Earth_ , was the symbol of Marmora. 

“What – what in the – how the hell?” she sputtered weakly.  “Keith, _what?”_  

“I’m still kind of wondering that myself,” he mumbled, staring at it like she was.  The gleam of the symbol reflected in his indigo eyes.  “I asked a merchant about it when we were at the space mall.  He said it was ancient and valuable.  Then we had to leave the mall.”

In spite of everything, Pidge burst out laughing.  “ _Seriously,_ Keith?  You asked a random salesguy in a space mall about your mysterious secret knife?  Is _that_ why we had to run away so fast?”

“Maybe,” he grumbled. 

She laughed at him some more, finally calming.  “Okay,” she sighed, finally getting her giggles back under control.  “Okay.  I noticed you acting kind of weird for a while, especially after Ulaz died.  But things just kept happening, and also you’re always kind of weird.”

“Thanks,” Keith said dryly.  “I think Shiro noticed something too, but we were all busy and it helped me stay at least kind of under the radar.  But a lot changed at the Marmora headquarters.  I missed it all during the Trials themselves, like when things don’t make sense in a dream but are logical enough at the time.  Although you did actually get into the base enough to monitor the Red Lion, now that I think of it.  But the rest wasn’t real, even though I thought it was real.  But after the Trials – I learned… a lot.”

Pidge stayed quiet.  Some truths were heavy.  They took effort to speak aloud.  So she waited for Keith to collect his strength and drag it together. 

He wasn’t facing her.  She sat small and silent at his back while he stared at the wall of the medbay.  Time passed, but for this Pidge could be patient. 

When he finally spoke, his eyes were closed, body turned away and curved in small. 

“I think I’m Galra.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well jesus heck that was long. anyway, i’m back now and will be attempting to return to the chapter-per-week work that used to be the regular deal. voltron turned into a mess and i’m very disappointed, and the whole fiasco definitely made me fall out of the fandom a little bit, but i really want to try to keep going with this and some other VLD works. so hopefully i’ll be around! 
> 
> thank you all so much for your patience with my erratic writing and the general disaster that is me trying to write a long-run canon-aligned fic for the first time, like, ever. 
> 
> see you soon!

**Author's Note:**

> i'm bad at the internet but my tumblr is [here](https://luoup.tumblr.com/) if you wanna find me on there


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